Love can be cruel
by BrooklynX
Summary: Fritz thought this school for mutants would be an easy thing. But what happens when he meets Kitty? Will Lance get in his way? Read to find out.
1. I

**Author's note:** I don't own any of the X-men or marvel blah blah blah. You've all heard it before. Here's what's going on with my character, which I own, Fritz Jager. He has been in a story before called Ataxia  only I stopped writing cause no one was reading it. He's also in another story, which is still in progress (no title yet). However, in each story, he is a bit different with different powers. I guess I am just trying things out to see which one I like best. I don't feel like changing the name cause I like Fritz Jager. SO BACK OFF! I have a sequel planned if this one goes well. So please read and review. I hope to continue _this _story. But I need reviews to do so. Even if you don't like it, please review so I can make if better. With that being said, on with the story. WEE!

"Welcome Fritz, I'm Professor Charles Xavier." The professor rolled across his lavishly decorated study to greet the new mutant who was standing in the doorway.

Scott patted Fritz on the back, "I've gotta go. I'll see you in and hour." Scott shut the door behind Fritz and took off down the hall.

Fritz dropped his backpack on the floor and looked around the overly large study. He wasn't used to large rooms. Sure he had a big living room and dining room in his house back in Denver, but so far, every room he had seen in this institute was bigger thna his living room. He eyed the study from wall to wall before he noticed the professor who had his hand out.

"Oh! Sorry, nice to meet you." Fritz extended his hand and shook the professor's, feeling a bit embarrassed.

"No need to apologize." Xavier rolled past Fritz towards the door. "Would you like a tour of the mansion?"

"Yeah!" Fritz turned and ran past the professor to hold the door open for him.

"Thank you," Xavier rolled out of his study and continued through the foyer. He brought Fritz to the kitchen where they found Rogue eating a bagel.

"Rogue, this is the new student, Fritz." The professor gestured to his left where Fritz was staring around the kitchen.

"Nice to meet you," Rogue shook Fritz's hand. They talked for a few minutes before Rogue left the kitchen to find something to occupy her.

"Feel free to help yourself to anything in the kitchen. It's restocked often." He led Fritz out of the kitchen and finished the tour in about thirty minutes. During the tour, Fritz had met Evan and Jean. He was told he'd meet the others later.

Xavier showed him to his room, which was closer to the end of the hall, then the front. Fritz opened the door to his new room and stepped inside followed closely be Xavier. There was a closet, a dresser, a nightstand, and a bed with a small rectangular black box on it. He walked over to the bed, laid his bag on it, and picked up the black box. Fritz noticed a small yellow X on the top left corner.

"What's this?" He turned around and eyed the professor.

"A welcome gift." The professor rolled a bit closer to get a better look. "To tell you the truth, I haven't seen it yet. Ororo takes care of that."

"Who's Ororo?" Fritz looked back at the professor and shifted his wait to one foot.

"She's another instructor here. You'll meet her soon." The professor moved closer yet again obviously anxious to see what was in the box.

Fritz turned his attention back to the small box. He lifted the top off to reveal a black uniform. He pulled it out and let the majority of the uniform fall to the ground. Everything was black except the shoulders, elbows, and knees, which were white. The white parts also seemed to be a bit more padded than the rest.

"They are truly unique," the professor said. "Each one has differences."

"Is this what I wear for the "danger room"." Fritz folded the uniform up and laid it on the bed.

"Yes. That reminds me, would you care to give the danger room a go?" Xavier headed for the door as if Fritz didn't have a choice. More of an, 'I'm telling you, you have a danger room session,' thing.

"Ah, sure. Where is it?" Fritz asked.

"I'll wait outside your door so you can change, then I'll show you." The professor rolled through the open doorway and shut the door behind him.

Fritz walked over to his bed and unzipped his bag of cloths. He quickly hung most of it up in the closet and dumped the rest in the dresser. He ripped off his blue t-shirt and tossed it on the ground. Fritz walked over to the mirror on the wall and looked at his reflection. He had light skin, short blond hair and light green eyes. He held his arms out, then flexed them a little. _"I wonder if staying here will help me get into shape?" _He thought. Fritz wasn't muscular, but he wasn't scrawny.

"_Oh yeah!" _He forgot the professor was waiting outside his door. He kicked off his black sandals and tossed his brown cargo shorts on the bed. Then he hurriedly slipped into his black and white uniform. He looked around for some shoes to wear because none came in the box with the uniform. He gave up and slipped his sandals back on before headed for the door.

Xavier was sitting patiently by the door reading a book. He looked up when Fritz came out, "it looks good on you. Ready?" He put his book in a small pouch on the side of his wheel chair.

"Thanks, ah...yeah." Fritz felt a bit weird. He wasn't used to wearing such tight clothing. Especially walking around a house he was new too.

Xavier led Fritz through the mansion, down to the sub basement, and to the danger room. The doors opened as they approached and the professor led Fritz inside the giant metal room.

"This, is the danger room," Xavier said loudly.

"...Wow," was all Fritz could come up with as he looked around the giant metal room. He looked up and saw a fairly large glass room hanging from the ceiling. Scott was up there with Rogue, Evan, and some blue kid with a tail he hadn't met before. Scott looked down at him and waved. Fritz waved back and returned his attention to the professor. "What do I do now?"

"This room can simulate any scenario you program it to run," Xavier explained. "We use if for training, as well as exercising. We always have new students run a simulation to show us what they are capable of. It helps us train you in the future." Xavier looked up at the control room, then back at Fritz. "Do you want to do this? We never force you to do anything here." Xavier said in a softer, reassuring voice.

"...ah." Fritz thought about it for a while. _"What if I mess up? What if I don't do it right? What if they laugh at me?" _All these thoughts were going trough his head.

"Come on Fritz! It's not that bad!" Fritz heard from a speaker above him. He looked up and saw Scott with a mic. in his hand.

"Sure, I guess." He told the professor.

"Excellent. We'll start right away." The professor looked up at Scott. "Scott, run sim. BR-63."

"You got it professor!" Scott typed something into the control panel and gave the professor a thumbs up.

"What do I do?" Fritz asked with a hint of fear in his voice.

"Just do whatever comes natural. I'd like to see what kind of choices you make." Xavier turned around and rolled out the room. Fritz saw the large metal doors close and the room went black.

Fritz heard a few beeps, and then there was a pause before the lights came back on. Only he wasn't in a room anymore. He could see the sun and sky above him. He heard shouts and cars and the hustle and bustle of a city. _"This can't be right."_ He thought as he walked over to the edge of the concrete platform he was standing on. When he got to the edge he knew something was wrong. He was standing on the rooftop of a building, in downtown New York or what looked like downtown New York. He didn't know what was wrong, but this didn't feel real.

_"Wait, the professor said this room simulates scenarios, right? So this means I'm still inside."_ He bent down to feel the concrete roof. Sure enough, it was cool to the touch like metal. _"I'm so smart." _He thought.

Fritz took a closer look over the edge and heard an ear piercing sound. Kind of like an alarm. He looked around and saw a black van pulled up in front of a bank. Men were coming out and others were going in carrying large brown bags. _"Whatever come natural. Alright, lets get this over with."_

Fritz looked around the top of the building but couldn't find any means to get to the bottom. No staircase, no ladder, no nothing. _"Fuck, I hate this part," _he thought as he kicked off his sandals. He clenched his fists and closed his eyes.

Fritz groaned as his skin darkened to a deep crimson. His pinky and ring fingers grew together to form one finger. Then his fingers hardened, thickened and became razor sharp talons. He moaned again as his legs shifted and formed another set of joints becoming digitigrades. His toes grew together to form three toes, and they also became razor sharp talons like his hands.

He wrapped his arms around his sides and knelt to the ground before two large membranous wings ripped through his uniform and stretched to their full length. At the same time, a thick tail also ripped through his uniform. Fritz clutched his head, while his ears became pointed. His hair grew until it reached the middle of his back and changed to a snowy white. He grew two long horns on his forehead that curved back slightly. Finally his mouth elongated and became a beak/snout with many sharp teeth.

Scott, Rogue, Evan, Jean, Kurt, and Logan all stared in aw at Fritz's hunched over body. He stood up slowly and let out a loud growl before rolling his head around a couple of times. Then without further delay, he ran and jumped off the side of the building spreading his wings only to wobble in the air and fall to the roof of the closest building with a heavy thud. Fritz made it from roof top to roof top until he got to the ground level, then he ran on all fours to the bank robbery.

All the mutants in the control room looked over at Xavier and Ororo for details on Fritz's mutation. "Well?" Evan asked impatiently. "What the hell kind of mutation is that!?"

"Evan! Language." Storm scolded.

"Sorry auntie O." Evan lowered his head so he couldn't meet his aunt's gaze.

"I would have to classify Fritz as an advanced mutate, or metamorph. Like beast, only he has the power to control his mutation." Xavier typed a few things into the consol in front of him and it brought up statistics and vital signs of Fritz. Xavier studied them for a moment before continuing. "He has phenomenal strength. His whole anatomy is built for speed and flight. He has almost no body fat and possesses greater proportionate muscle strength than normal." Xavier rubbed his chin and pulled up a new page on the computer.

"His eye sight is pretty much perfect day _and_ night, and his tail is prehensile." The professor once again opened another page and read from it. "He has gained 3 inches in height and almost 60 pounds. About half of his weight gain is from his wings and tail, the other half is muscle gain. His talons are extremely hard and extremely sharp. I wouldn't be surprised if he could leave marks in steel." Scott whistled at this statement.

The professor read a bit faster because he was almost done. "He now weighs 210 pounds and is 6ft. tall. He out weighs you Scott." Xavier said in a joking manner.

"I'm impressed," Scott said as he looked back down at Fritz. Fritz had already cleared out the men in the van, a little less subtly than Scott or the others would have done it. One of the vans windows was broken, it had a flat tire or two, the driver side door was laying on the ground, and there was a fairly large dent in one side. "Nice," Scott muttered. Fritz ran out of the building to take cover behind the busted up van as two men came chasing after him with automatic weapons.

Fritz ducked behind the van he had recently "destroyed". The two men he was running from stopped in the door way and opened fire on the van. He finally decided he had had enough, so he jumped out around the side of the van and threw a hubcap at one of them like a Frisbee.

"Hey guys, sorry I'm late. Like, is that the new kid?" Fritz heard from above. He was so busy looking for the voice that he didn't notice the black truck until it was too late. The truck ran into him head on which sent him flying back into the wall of the bank. He tried to pull himself back up, but was too weak and sank back to the ground.

The simulation stopped and Fritz began the painful transformation back to his normal self. Lucky for him he was slightly unconscious.

The danger room doors opened and the other mutants walked in talking about Fritz's sim. Fritz found the energy to stand up but was helped by Scott and Kurt who both gave him a shoulder to lean on.

"Hey Fritz man, you were supposed to catch the bank robbers," Scott said sarcastically.

"Yeah well I was too busy being shot at to get around to it," Fritz said with a grin.

After Scott and Kurt helped him stand on his own Fritz walked over to the corner where he had kicked his sandals and slipped them on. Kitty came running up to him with here hands behind her back. "Hey, I'm Kitty." She extended her hand and Fritz shook it.

"Ah...damn." He mentally kicked himself for forgetting his name.

"That's Fritz," Scott put in.

Kitty giggled a little. "Sorry about messing you up back there, I like didn't know the mic. was on." She said honestly.

"Yeah—no problem," Fritz avoided looking directly into her eyes. _"Fuck! I can't believe I messed up in front of her."_ He looked at her quickly before looking away again. _"She's really hot. Fuck!" _He thought to himself.

"Well done Fritz," Xavier said as he rolled up next to him.

"Yeah good job kid," Logan said gruffly. "By the way, I'm Logan." Logan extended his hand and shook Fritz's.

"And I'm Ororo," Storm made herself obvious and shook Fritz hand too.

"Nice to meet you both." Fritz said trying to remember his manners.

"I'm sorry to say that we can't seem to find a codename that suites you." Xavier said as if he failed Fritz.

"What about Fritz?" Fritz asked as if it were the most obvious answer in the world.

"You wouldn't mind not having a codename?" Xavier asked.

"_One _name is hard enough to remember." Fritz said bluntly.

"It's settled then." Logan cut in. "Let me be the first to _officially_ welcome you to the X-Men."

**Author's note: **Sorry it was so long. I wanted to get most of the introduction and crap out of the way so I can start the plot in the next chapter or two. Remember, please review.


	2. II

**Author's note: **Thanks to those of you who reviewed the first chapter. I've been told that there is a bit too much swearing in this story. So I will keep this chapter PG-13 but if I hear there is still too much swearing, I might need to raise it to R. There won't be any obsessive swearing that goes on and on or anything. Mostly in the places myself and maybe others would normally use curse words. I could just stop the swearing, but that's the way I talk in life, so it's just natural to write that way. I hope I don't offend anyone with any of the swearing. I don't mean to. Anywho, let's get this chapter started. Oh yeah, don't forget, everyone love's magical Trevor.

Fritz lay stretched out on the couch in the foyer reading a magazine enjoying his weekend. He heard someone enter the room so he looked over the top of the couch and saw Kitty walking towards him swaying her hips. He had only met her that once in the danger room but he knew they were perfect for each other.

She was beautiful in every way. She had a perfect body and a cut face. He even heard she got straight A's. What more could a sixteen year old ask for, beauty _and_ intelligence.

Kitty walked over to him and sat on the other end of the couch. Fritz put down the gaming magazine and looked up at her. "Hey, what's up?" He asked.

"Nothing much," Kitty said. She twirled a finger around in her long bangs. "I'm bored."

"How can I _help_?" Fritz got a bit excited. _"Maybe I'll be able to spend some time with her," _he thought. _"Please stay bored." _He was about to sit up to allow her more room, but she had switched from sitting on the end of the couch to straddling his stomach. She held his shoulders down with her hands and looked into his eyes.

"You wanna' help?" Kitty asked seductively.

"Sure," Fritz said feeling really tired all of a sudden. He didn't try to resist, he just let her do what she wanted to do.

Kitty closed the gap between their lips and whispered to Fritz before continuing, "you can help me by waking up."

"Huh?" Fritz asked feeling a bit strange.

"WAKE UP!" She shouted. Only it wasn't Kitty's voice, it was Scott's. "WAKE UP FRITZ!" She shouted again. Suddenly she was replaced by Scott's image, and he didn't look too happy. "Holy crap Fritz, wake up man!"

"What the..." Fritz looked around and noticed he was in his room. "That's not cool man." Fritz said realizing it was all just a dream. "You don't wake a man when he's dreaming."

"Well It's either that or be late on your first day to BHS." Scott said.

"Oh yeah, cause I was late to _QTK_ lasttime." Fritz pulled himself out of bed and sat on the edge, trying to clear his head.

"No man, BHS stands for Bayville High School." Scott said like it was so obvious.

"...oh. Well, yeah, I _don't_ want to be late." Fritz still felt a little tired from last night's danger room session. But he was hoping the dull pain would wear off later. "How much time do I have?"

Scott looked at his watch, "about seven minutes."

"Great, perfect. I'm doing fine _so_ far. First I failed the danger room session, then I forget my name when I'm talking to Kitty. You just interrupted a _very_ nice dream and now I'm going to be late for my first day of school. Fuck." Fritz stood up and walked over to his dresser.

"You didn't fail the danger room session, you just...didn't pass." Scott tried to make it sound better but it wasn't working.

Fritz turned around to face the older mutant. "In my books you either win or lose. I didn't win, so I lost. Get it?" Fritz didn't mean to sound upset, he was just tired.

"Yeah I get it." Scott walked towards the door and stepped outside before turning back around. "By the way, you weren't dreaming about _Kitty_ were you?" Scott said with a big smile on his face.

"Goodbye Scott." Fritz shut the door and could hear Scott fade down the hall. Fritz rubbed his forehead and headed into his bathroom.

Scott honked the horn again for the seventh time. "Where the hell is he!?" Scott asked the others in the car as if they held the answer to his question.

The front door opened and Fritz ran out of the house carrying his backpack in one hand. He stumbled down the steps and hopped in the back of Scott car. Just as he sat down Scott took off and speeded towards school.

"What took you dude?" Evan asked from the seat next to him.

"Sorry. I...ah, got lost," Fritz tried to ignore Kurt who had started laughing.

"Hey! That place is big!" Fritz crossed his arms over his chest like a little kid. "I've only been here for 15 hours."

"Sorry, I guess I forgot how hard eet vas," Kurt said. "After all, I've been here almost 3 months."

"Where's Kitty?" Fritz asked as soon as he realized Kitty wasn't there.

"She gets a ride from one of the Brotherhood, _Lance_." Scott said the name like he was talking about the Devil himself.

"Oh..." Fritz suddenly didn't feel all that great. "Who are the Brotherhood?" He asked sounding a little disappointed.

"Just some losers you'll meet eventually," Kurt said because Scott didn't answer.

Scott's red sports car pulled into the high school parking lot seconds before the bell rang. "Damn it, I was supposed to meet with my chemistry teacher before class!" He said in Fritz's general direction.

"Hey! I said I was sorry. I got lost remember?" Fritz hadn't meant to make Scott late. But he couldn't believe Scott was trying to blame him for this.

"Yeah, well make sure it doesn't happen again." Scott stormed off and into the School.

"What the hell was that all about?" Fritz stared at the spot, where Scott had been standing, with a confused look on his face.

"Don't worry about him, he's just under a lot of pressure trying to get into college. He was supposed to meet with his chem. teacher to talk about it." Evan pointed out as he grabbed his bag from the back seat.

"Don't let eet bother you though," Kurt put in. "He's always cranky een ze morning."

"Yeah..." Fritz slung his backpack over his shoulder and walked towards the main office.

Fritz received his class schedule from the lady at the front desk and proceeded to his 1st hour class, History with Mr. Dickson.

"This is going to be the best school year ever. I start off the day with History, my favorite subject." Fritz said sarcastically. "Fuck." He walked down the hall and stopped at room 210.

"Here we go." Fritz opened the door and stepped inside. He looked for the teacher who was up at the front of the class talking about the Bill of Rights. He was an older looking man with graying hair and a mustache. He had a big belly and short legs.

Some of the kids in the class turned around when Fritz came in but soon focused on Mr. Dickson again. Mr. Dickson however, didn't acknowledge Fritz at all. He just kept talking about congress and the amendments.

Fritz looked around for a free desk, and laid eyes on the teacher's desk. _"That will do for now."_ Fritz thought and sat down in Mr. Dickson's leather swivel chair. After a few minutes, Mr. Dickson handed out some papers to the class, told them to get to work, and then walked back to his desk.

He saw Fritz in his chair, but instead of telling him to move, he simply grabbed a blue plastic chair from an empty desk and brought it over to the side of his desk. He sat down and looked at Fritz. "You must be the new kid."

"Uh, yeah. I'm Fritz," Fritz said and was about to get out of Mr. Dickson's chair but the man held his hand up.

"If you like it, you can use it." The teacher grabbed a few papers from a filing cabinet and handed them to Fritz.

"Grade these for me." Mr. Dickson said. He then pulled the little blue chair up to his computer and started working on a word document.

"Aren't you supposed to tell me to get out of your chair and work on the assignment that everyone else is working on?" Fritz didn't understand his new teacher.

"No, unless you have a problem with it. You grade papers for me, for the rest of the year, and you'll pass this class." Mr. Dickson said not looking up from his computer.

"Sounds fair to me." Fritz grabbed a pen and the answer key and started grading the papers he was handed. _"Oh yeah! This is definitely going to be the best school year ever." _Fritz thought as he looked over at Mr. Dickson. He couldn't believe it. Mr. Dickson was playing Starcraft! This teacher was awesome.

**Author's note:** Sorry it took so long to update. I had a lot to do. I'm trying to get a new job cause the one I have now is shitty and pays like crap, excuse my French. I know I was supposed to get the plot started in this chapter but I will try to do that in the next one, hopefully. Also, this chapter was meant to be a lot longer but I didn't want to hold it off any longer. So I guess I'll just put the rest of this chapter in chapter three. I'm going to try to take no longer than a week to update this story every time. In Bayville High School, I'm using _my_ teachers and classes because I don't know any teachers from X-men except Mr. McCoy. I hope I spelt that right. So all of the teachers in this story are ones that I have in real life. I hope you don't mind if you're reading this. I think I've covered everything that needs to be covered. So remember, I need some reviews if you want another chapter.


	3. III

**Author's note: **Sorry it took so long to post. Okay, this chapter is going to get the plot going. I apologize it didn't start earlier. Wow, I feel weird now. I don't have a big author's note like the first two chapters. Maybe I should just make up some stuff to take up space so this author's note isn't so small. But that requires more work, so I guess I'll leave it like so. Hi-ho silver! AWAY!

**Boots:** What's PR?

**skyangle2004:** Some of his past will be revealed here and there. Which will include how he got to the X-men.

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Fritz weaved his way through the crowded cafeteria and wandered outside into the bright sunlight. He looked around for some familiar faces and spotted Scott waving his hand over his head. Fritz stumbled past a table of football jocks and almost dropped his food when one of the football players tossed a ball to another. "Watch where your going!" One of the jocks yelled.

"Damn jocks." Fritz thought as he regained his balance. He hurried to the table where all the other X-men were sitting and took a seat at the end.

"Vhat's up man?" Kurt asked around a mouth full of food.

"Nothing much." Fritz slipped his backpack off and slid it under the table.

"How has your first day been so far?" Jean asked sounding like a nagging mother.

"Well, History was fine. But my Biology teacher expects me to write a page on the differences of a deciduous forest and a coniferousforest. I've never heard of either one." Fritz heard Jean start to explain the difference but decided to just continue anyway. "Then in English my teacher wants me to write a professional résumé. I'm 16, what do I need a résumé for!? I finally go a break in Spanish because I don't know any of the words yet." He didn't really feel like eating much so he pushed his tray away.

"See Fritz, you're day is getting better." Scott tried to cheer him up but it wasn't working.

"What classes do you have _after _lunch?" Kitty asked

"Uh, let's see." Fritz pulled a wrinkled up piece of paper out of his pocked and unfolded it. He squinted a bit trying to make out the smudged writing. "Theatre, then... Calculus." He folded the paper back up and stuffed it in his pocket.

"Calculus?" Evan questioned. "Isn't that like senior math?"

"Actually, I think it's like, advanced senior math," Kitty said.

Fritz looked at his watch, about seven minutes till the bell "Uh-oh, here comes trouble," Rogue said. A second later Fritz's can of cherry coke was snatched off the table.

"What the _hell_!?" Fritz stood up ready to confront the assailant but was met with a hand on his chest.

"Don't try it man," Pietro said. He took his hand away from Fritz's chest and looked around the table at the other X-men.

"_Don't_ worry, _I_ wasn't drinking that." Fritz said.

Lance waived the can in the air and took another drink. "Good, cause I'm thirsty."

"Quit being such a jerk Lance." Kitty stood up and walked over to him.

"What do you care?" Lance asked angrily.

"He's like, my friend dummy." Kitty grabbed the can and set it on the table.

"And I'm your boyfriend," Lance pointed out.

"Yeah but that doesn't like, give you the right to be an asshole," Kitty put her hands on her hips.

Fritz just stood there watching the two argue. _"Why is she sticking up for me; and to her boyfriend? Am I missing something?" _Fritz thought.

"So who is he anyway?" Lance asked looking over at Fritz who was still standing.

"He's a new student at the Institute. He moved here from Denver." Kitty started to relax and act like a girlfriend does rather than an enemy.

"You mean a new MUTANT." Lance said like he was the only one who figured it out.

"Duh." Fritz said plainly.

"Whatever, let's go babe." Lance grabbed her hand and walked away forcing Kitty to follow. Kitty turned around and mouthed, "I'm sorry" to the group before she, Lance and Pietro rounded a corner.

"Prick." Fritz sat down and tossed his violated coke into a nearby trashcan.

"Don't worry about him, he's just being Lance." Scott said. "Oh yeah, before I forget, sorry about this morning. I was a little tired. I guess I need to get to bed a little earlier." He extended his hand towards Fritz. "Are we cool?"

"...yeah, we're cool." Fritz shook Scott's hand just as the bell rang.

Fritz tossed his backpack on his bed and kicked off his shoes. He briefly went over his classes in his mind to see if he had any homework. _"Oh yeah, Biology and English." _He thoughtHe looked down at his backpack just as he heard someone call his name.

"Hey Fritz! You've got a package man!" Fritz heard Evan yell from down stairs.

"I have all day to do homework." Fritz said to himself. He rushed out of his room and down the hall.

"What is if?" Evan was standing over the big box.

Fritz lifted it off the ground and headed back to his room. "My computer. My mom mailed it so I didn't have to take it with me on the plane." He climbed the stairs carefully so he wouldn't trip and trop the heavy box.

He shut the door to his room and set the box on the ground next to his desk. Inside was his pride and joy. I took him years to save up for it, but he had finally built the PC of his dreams. Fritz considered it top of the line, even though he knew it wasn't _that_ good. It was a lime green with a window on the side to view all of his lights and fans. It only took Fritz a matter of minutes to set up and boot the system. But he soon lost track of time when he got online.

Hours later Fritz shut down his computer and looked at the clock on his bed stand. It read 8:23 pm. "Whoa, I think I missed dinner." He said to no one. "I guess that answers my question, no one tells you if your missing dinner. Maybe that's why Kitty told me dinner is at 7:00 every night."

He walked down the hall and towards the kitchen. He passed through the foyer where he found Kitty and Kurt sitting on the couch watching TV. "Are you like, feeling alright?" Kitty asked when she noticed Fritz in the room.

"Fine. Why?" Fritz didn't remember every saying he felt bad.

"You didn't come down for dinner." Kitty sounded a bit worried.

"Oh, right. I lost track of time is all," Fritz said.

"That's good, as long as you're like, feeling fine." Kitty turned back to the TV feeling a bit better.

Fritz wandered into the kitchen and grabbed an apple out of the fridge. He started thinking back to his danger room session, and how he _fell_ from roof to roof, rather than _flew. "Maybe I should work on my flight."_ Fritz thought.

He ran back to his room and changed into his modified uniform. Ororo had fixed the holes where his wings and tail ripped through, and fabricated _special _holes that would open before this wings or tail ripped it again.

He walked through the foyer and looked over at the couch to find Kitty resting her head on Kurt's shoulder. Fritz slowed his pace as he looked at the two. _"You know of coarse Kurt, this means war," _he thought angrilyFritzpicked up his pace as he made his way to the danger room.

When he got there, the door was locked. "Damn, too late." He looked at the viewing monitor next to the door. Logan was in there running a simulation. "This could take awhile," he said to himself.

Fritz looked back down the hall. _"I guess I could as long as I stay close to the mansion." _He thought.

He took the elevator back to the ground floor and went outside. Fritz walked around to the side of the institute and looked up at the roof. "Here we go again," he said aloud.

He mutated and after being forced to the ground from the pain, he stood up and looked back at the roof. Using his sharp talons he climbed the wall slowly. He still wasn't used to this body. After making it to the top he walked to the edge and looked out at the many acres of land.

"_Plenty of room to practice." _It was easier to start off on a high platform then from the ground. This way he didn't have to fight against gravity as much. Fritz spread his dark wings and after a small delay, he jumped.

Fritz could feel the wind against his skin and the feeling of weightlessness. But it was quickly replaced with pain as he hit the ground hard. "Daaaaaa!" Fritz picked himself up and looked around the grounds to make sure nobody saw him.

He shook of the pain and made his way to the side of the house. Fritz folded his wings over his shoulders and across his chest to form a sort of "cloak" so they were out of his way. He made his way to the top of the institute once again. He spread his wings and jumped. It pretty much went just like the first time, weightlessness followed by pain; and just like the first time, he got up and did it again.

"_This_ is getting old." He said aloud as he got up for the fifth time. His whole body ached and he didn't know how much more he could take. He climbed the side of the institute for the last time and spread his wings one more time. He had some cuts and scrapes here and there as well as some bruises he'd probably have to explain later.

He looked down at the ground and without hesitation, jumped. He fought to stay airborne but began to lose altitude. He flapped his wings wildly as a last attempt to stay in the air and was rewarded when he didn't hit the ground. Instead he balanced out and flew smoothly through the air. "YEAH!" He screamed. "Woo hoo!" He yelled as he turned this way and that, flapping his wings.

He soon got a bit tiered of the constant flapping, so he stretched them out and kept them open. Fritz glided across the institute grounds and decided he had had enough so he slowly drifted to the ground. "Oh yeah, I should probably work on landing too." He muttered before he hit the ground and rolled on his back.

He laid they panting, staring up the giant trees that towered over him. He was startled when he heard clapping coming from behind him. He jumped to his feet and looked in the direction of the clapping. He spotted a tall, slender woman in the shadows.

"Very impressive." The woman said as she moved into the light, it was Mystique. "I've been watching you for some time now, and I've got to say, you're magnificent." She stepped closer only to see Fritz step further away.

"Who are you? Are you a teacher here?" Fritz wondered how many mutants had visible mutations. So far he thought Kurt, Hank, and himself were the only ones. He didn't feel safe around the blue woman though. He didn't know why, after all he had just met her but there was something about her he didn't trust.

"My name is Mystique. I wouldn't say I'm a teacher, more of an advisor." She kept her distance now. She didn't want to scare him off already.

"So you don't live here?" Fritz clacked his beak and tilted his head.

"No. I'm a friend of Xavier's." Mystique sat down on an old tree stump.

"What are you doing out here?" Fritz started to relax a bit but he didn't let his guard down.

"I could ask you the same question." She stood up and started to slowly pace around Fritz.

Fritz suddenly felt embarrassed. He forgot she had seen him fall all those times. "So...what do you want?" He just now realized that Mystique was walking circles around him. Studying him.

"You. Look at you; you're a perfect being. Do you know what the two of us could accomplish if we worked together?" Mystique stopped her pacing in front of Fritz to look him in the face.

"Not exactly." Fritz couldn't think of what she was talking about.

"No matter. You'll know sooner or later." Mystique turned and started walking deeper into the forest.

Fritz wanted to know more about her so he followed. "What do you mean sooner or later?"

"I'm going to offer you a proposition. You can take it or leave it." She kept her pace, looking back every now and then as if someone was following her.

"Okay, shoot." Fritz found it hard to keep up so he picked up the pace.

"Join with me. I'll teach you great things." Mystique sounded like she was selling something.

Fritz stopped where he was. "Join you? What about Xavier?" Mystique hadn't stopped walking so by now she was plenty far ahead. Fritz dropped down on all fours and ran after her. He caught up with her but rather than stand up straight and walk on two feet, he found it easier to keep up with the blue mutant on all fours.

"Ah yes, Xavier. His _dream_ is for mutants to live peacefully with humans." Mystique said the last word with anger laced in it. "He's a fool."

"What's wrong with that? You don't think it can happen?" Fritz stood now as Mystique stopped at the wall of the institute.

"Let me show you something. Come with me." She turned to face Fritz .

"Why, how do I know I can trust you?" Fritz actually _was_ starting to trust her.

"I'm trying to help you." She sounded like a concerned mother.

Fritz stared at his three taloned feet for a while. "Alright. I'm Fritz by the way."

"I know. Like I said, I've been watching you for some time now." Mystique said. This sent chills down Fritz's back. Mystique turned towards the wall and jumped. She grabbed the ledge and pulled her self up and over.

Fritz mutated back to normal and climbed his way over the wall. He held himself at the top while he looked back at the mansion. _"No one in sight." _He looked down on the other side of the wall and saw Mystique waiting for him in a green convertible. He hopped down and got in the passenger seat.

The two sped down the empty street and headed in the direction of the city. "Where are we going?" Fritz asked, not wanting to go far from the institute.

"Not much further." Mystique kept her eyes on the road.

The two drove down one of the darker and more deserted streets of Manhattan. Fritz couldn't stand the silence so he reached over and turned on the radio. He sat back and snuck a peek a Mystique. When she didn't say or do anything he reached forward again and tuned the radio into a rock station. He finally started to relax as the sound so Godsmack swept through the car. They came to a stop next to an alley and Mystique put the car in park.

"Look down there," Mystique pointed down the alley at a group of four men. Fritz did so and saw three big white guys hitting, kicking, and pushing black man down the alley.

"Someone should help him!" Fritz grabbed the door handle to open the door but Mystique stopped him.

"I wouldn't. They'll do the same to you. Look at them Fritz." The white men now had the black man pinned against a wall and were throwing things like beer bottles and rocks at him. "They do this because his skin is darker. He is different they can't even accept other humans in there society. Do you really think they'd accept _you_?"

Fritz looked back down the alley. The three big guys were gone but the black man was left in a bloody mess against a wall. Mystique put the car into drive and started down the road again. They came to a small house at the end of the road. Mystique parked the car and got out. Fritz followed her as she walked around to the back of the house. The two ducked under the kitchen window and looked in.

Inside, Fritz could see an young kid about his age and an older man; obviously father and son. "Get out of this house you fucking fag!" The father picked up a lamp and threw it across the room at his son who leaped out of the way. The lamp crashed against the wall and shattered.

"Dad! Please!" The kid yelled but his dad just picked up another object to throw. The older man threw the TV remote at his son, which flew past the kid and smashed through a window.

"I said get out of here! I'm won't have a gay man living in this house." The father yelled again and again he threw something. This time the kid ran out of the room and out the front door.

Mystique gestured for Fritz to follow he back to the car. They ducked around the house and got to the just in time to see the kid turn the corner at the end of the road in a sprint.

"Not even families can accept their own. He is kicked out of his house. Why, because he's gay?" Mystique was finally getting Fritz to understand. She could tell by the way he looked at her. "He is different. Just like you and me. Humans can't accept things that are different. That's why Xavier is a fool."

"So what do we do?" Fritz wanted to help Mystique. He just didn't know how yet.

Mystique led them back to the car. They got in and took off down the street. "We need to help them understand." Mystique finally said.

"How can I help?" Fritz turned the radio down now that he had something to talk about.

"You need to bring Logan to me." Mystique turned the car into an empty warehouse parking lot.

"What happened to trying to help _Xavier_ understand?" Fritz thought the whole point was to convince Xavier that humans couldn't accept mutants.

"Xavier's mind is too powerful to change. Plus, he wouldn't follow you here." Mystique pointed to the old building. "If we can help Wolverine understand though, then he can help us get to the professor."

"Okay. What do you want me to do?" Fritz questioned.

"All you need to do is bring Logan _here _in two days Mystique said. "I'll take care of the rest."

"Why two days?" Fritz asked.

"I need time to prepare." Mystique put the car into drive and left the warehouse parking lot.

The two sat in silence the rest of the way back to the mansion. Fritz left the radio alone this time because he was thinking about the situation. They arrived at the Institutes front gates and Fritz got out of the convertible.

"Remember Fritz, two days at the warehouse down town." Mystique reminded him as if he was going to forget.

"Don't worry, I remember." Fritz walked towards the gates as Mystique drove off towards the brotherhood house. Fritz entered his personal ID number into the keypad and the gates opened.

**Author's note:** Sorry this chapter was so long. I wanted to get one of the side plots going and I didn't want to keep you guys waiting any longer. Which brings me to my other point. Please excuse me if the story sounds a bit...jumbled and thrown together. I wrote half of it at home and the other half at school. Also, It's like 1:23 in the morning here and I'm really tired. So if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. I would be more than happy to answer them. Please remember to review.


	4. IV

**Author's note: **First off, I'd like to thank those of you who are reviewing, I wouldn't be writing this chapter or an others if it weren't for you. Secondly, my friend and I decided to discontinue writing our other story I talked about in the first chapter. But his character Axel Fultz, who belongs to him, will make a few appearances in this story. Anywho, let's get this chapter started. _I_ know you've all been dieing for it. Right? ...uh, shiver me timbers. 'gyar

**Andy: **Sorry about the last chapter, it _was _rushed. I wanted to post it quickly so you guys wouldn't have to wait any longer.

Fritz walked slowly down the hall, that led to Xavier's study. The professor had asked to see him a few minutes earlier. All that morning Fritz did his best to avoid both Logan _and_ Xavier. Mystique had told him that neither of them could know what she and Fritz were planning. He trusted her but couldn't understand why all the secrecy. The humans weren't _that_ bad, were they. After all, wasn't _he_ once a human? Or had he been a mutant all his life. He wasn't quit sure.

Fritz stopped at the professor's door and turned the handle. He stepped in and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darker room. There was a fire going at the opposite side of the room. Fritz could see Logan standing in front of the jumping flames warming his hands.

"It's cold outside." Logan spoke up. "It's even colder, say around, one in the morning?" Logan turned around with a questionable look on his face.

_"Oh shit. Was I really out that late? Just play dumb Fritz." _He thought. "What do you mean?" He asked. _"...Brilliant."_

"Your security code was entered at the front gates at 1:13 this morning." Xavier said from behind his desk.

Fritz just now noticed the telepath in the room. "Oh, good morning professor. I didn't see you there." He tried to sound innocent. _"Wait, what do I need to sound innocent for, I haven't done anything wrong..." _He thought.

"Exactly. You _don't_ have to try and sound innocent." Xavier said.

"I thought you said you don't read our minds unless you ask?" Fritz suddenly got defensive.

"I'm not reading your mind Fritz, you're projecting your thoughts." Xavier hadn't meant to make Fritz upset. He just forgot to tell him that.

"...oh. Um, ok." Fritz sat down next to the fire. _"Note to self, don't project my_ _thoughts."_ He looked up at Logan.

"Your not in trouble kid, we're just looking for answers." Logan moved away from the fire and stood by the large window looking out over the driveway.

"Oh, sorry. I guess I didn't get enough sleep." Fritz could feel the warmth of the fire on his back. It _was _getting colder outside. After all, it was already November. December would be here soon, his favorite month. He loved the snow and the cold weather. He grew up in Denver, which could get pretty cold in the winter. He had always lived in cold weather. Whenever his family moved, they always moved to another location where it was colder for more of the year than it was warm.

"Can you explain to us why you were out past 11:30?" Xavier rolled over in front of the fire.

"I wanted to practice flying in the danger room but someone was already in there, so I decided to go outside." Fritz explained/

"OK." Xavier said. "But why did you leave the grounds?"

"Oh yeah. I guess I caught an updraft and it pulled me over the wall." Fritz replied.

"And why you were out until 1:00 this morning?" Xavier new Fritz was lying but he would not read his student's minds without permission.

"Well I got kind of board and didn't feel like sleeping." Fritz sounded a little nervous.

"Fritz, we have rules for a reason. No one outside of the grounds past eleven thirty unless you tell an adult." Xavier told him.

"Sorry, I lost track of time." Fritz looked down at the ground.

"It's fine. We just like to know these things for safety measures." Xavier rolled back behind his desk. "Well, that's it then. You'd better hurry and get some breakfast before Kurt wakes up."

"Yeah, thanks." Fritz left the Professor's study and made his way to the kitchen.

"He's keeping something from us." The professor turned to Logan.

"I know, I could smell his fear," Logan hadn't moved from the window.

"Keep and eye on him," Xavier said as Logan left the room.

Fritz wandered around the mansion aimlessly. His homework was done, or at least what he thought was important enough to _get _done. The TV was taken, so was the danger room, and he fried his processor so gaming on his computer was out of the question.

_"What's there to do in this place?" _He thought as he passed by the library. He looked in and saw Kitty sitting by herself on a couch with her laptop on the table in front of her. She looked upset. Fritz took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold.

Kitty looked up at him as he walked towards her and wiped a tear from her cheek. "Hey. What's the matter?" Fritz asked softly.

She sniffed a few times and wiped a few more tears with her hand. "My grandma died last night." She sniffed again and looked back at her laptop. I just found out." She put her head in her hands and started to cry.

Fritz slowly and quietly sat next to her on the couch and put an arm around her shoulders. "I'm so sorry," he said. He didn't know what else _to_ say but I'm sorry. He rubbed her shoulders a little bit as her body shook from her sobbing.

"I loved her so much." Kitty leaned into Fritz and took her hands away from her face, wrapping them around Fritz. She cried into his chest and hugged him tighter.

Fritz was a bit caught off guard. He hadn't expected this when he was wandering around the mansion. Not that he didn't enjoy it; he actually liked being this close to Kitty. He carefully wrapped his arms around her and let her cry it out. "Ssssh." He rubbed her back in random circles trying to calm her down. "It's going to be okay."

Her body shook again and she squeezed him harder. "No it's not! She's gone and she's not coming back." Kitty said but it was muffled by Fritz's shirt so he couldn't hear her that well. "I used to visit her over the summer. She was always so nice to me. She accepted me as a mutant more than my parents _ever _did."

"What can I do to make you feel better?" He asked. Fritz didn't like seeing her like this.

"Stay with me?" She released her hold on him and looked into his eyes.

"...sure." He said. She hugged him harder and buried her face in his shirt again and cried some more. "Anything for _you_ Kitty." He whispered low enough that she didn't hear him.

Fritz opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling. He looked down and saw Kitty sleeping, still hugging him. She had one leg in between his two and had the other one on the side so he had a hard time moving. He didn't want to wake her but he was starting to get a cramp in his leg.

He noticed she smelt like strawberries. Not too strong, but strong enough to smell from this far away._ "She smells good." _

He wanted to stay here with her for the rest of the night but he didn't like sleeping on couches. Plus his leg was really starting to bug him. He slowly slid her leg out from between his and scooted out from under her. He checked to make sure she was still asleep, cracked his neck and back, and left the library.

Fritz returned seconds later with a blanket in his hands. He draped it over her and shut down her computer. He looked around the quiet room to make sure he didn't need anything. After deciding he didn't, he turned and walked out of the library. _"Fucking Lance," _He thought as he walked back to his own room.

The next day came and went too slowly. Fritz wanted to meet Mystique that night but had doubts about the whole thing. School was just as boring as usual. He sat around doing nothing in History. Then he took a test on the cellular structure of plants in Biology. When he got to English, he was expected to take a test on a book he was supposed to have read. Which he didn't. He sat around doing _nothing_ in Spanish because he could care less about learning another language. In theatre he was forced to the front of the class to act out a short scene from a play he didn't even know existed. Finally his last class came around. He got into any argument with his Calculus teacher about functions and variables. He won of coarse, like always.

So now Fritz was laying on his bed waiting for nine O'clock to roll around. He was reading a book he got from the library at school. He liked to read in his spare time. Only when no one was around though. He didn't like to read when other people were watching him. He was called down for dinner and sat quietly in his seat while everyone else chated about random crap that they'd forget in about ten minutes. I looked over at Logan who was staring at him. _"God. Stop staring at me please." _Logan eventually returned his attention to his meal but every now and then looked up at Fritz.

Fritz looked directly across from him at Kitty. She was laughing and joking with Rogue as if her grandma had never died. _"Does Jean even know?" _He wondered. _"Does anyone know? Am I the only one she told?" _

Kitty looked across at him and smiled. He smiled back but she didn't notice because she was in another conversation with Jean. He finally finished his steak and potatoes. After thanking Ororo for the meal, he went upstairs to his room.

It was now 8:43pm. He decided he should start to get ready. He slipped on his sandals and headed back down the hall to find Logan. The Canadian couldn't be found in the foyer or the kitchen. So Fritz went out in the garage and sure enough, the burly man had a wrench in his hand and was working on his motorcycle.

Logan looked up as Fritz shut the door. "What can I do for you kid?" He asked.

"Uh...there's this car I saw for sale down town and I was kind of wondering if you could take me down there." Fritz felt a little uncomfortable asking Logan to go with him. After all, he had been at the institute for only a week now and he was already asking people for favors.

"Down town huh?" Logan tightened a few nuts.

"Yeah. I'd drive myself, but i haven't gotten my license switched over to New York yet. Plus I don't have a car. That's kinda the reason for going down town." Fritz leaned against the wall behind him.

"Why so late?" Logan asked while putting the wrench away.

"I saw the ad in the newspaper today. I called the guy and he said someone was coming by tomorrow to look at it. So I want to beat him to it." Fritz stepped away from the wall and hoped his lie would work.

Logan put all his tools away and looked over at Fritz. "Okay kid, let's get this over with quickly."

"Awesome." Fritz said. "Thanks Logan."

"Yeah yeah." Logan pulled a helmet out of the cabinet on the wall and handed it to Fritz. "Put this on."

Fritz took the helmet from Logan. "Your bike?"

"Yeah, unless you want to take the X-Van." Logan looked at Fritz with a 'don't even think about it' look on his face.

"Oh no." Fritz said quickly. He slipped the helmet over his head and strapped it on.

Logan mounted his bike, and pushed it out of the garage. Fritz hopped on the back as the powerful engine roared to life. "Hold on bub," Logan yelled over the loud engine. Fritz held onto Logan's jacket as they sped past the front gates.

**Author's note:** Okay, I know not much happened in this chapter. Sorry. I promise you more will happen in the next. Anywho, I'm thinking about changing the rating to R. If you have a problem with that, please tell me so I can try something else. I don't want to take any chances in later chapter so I should change the rating now, unless someone says otherwise. Thanks for reading. I'll try to get the next chapter up in a few days. Please leave a review.


	5. V

**Author's note: **Thanks to those of you who continue to review. It makes me feel a lot better about writing. I've only had one person talk to me about changing the rating of this story to R. So if by after this chapter, no one has said anything, I'm going to go ahead and change it. Hopefully it won't affect any of you. Thanks a bunch. Mmmmm, forbidden doughnut. Gaaaaaaaaahggg

**bubbleyum( ): **Thanks. Don't worry; I've had something planned for Lance for a long time. Bwahahahaha

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Logan turned his bike into the parking lot Fritz and Mystique had been in only two days ago. Fritz released his tight grip on Logan's jacket as they came to a stop in front of the huge warehouse doors. Logan dismounted and took off his helmet. He sniffed the air and looked around the dark lot.

"Okay kid, where's this car?" Logan asked. Fritz could tell Logan was on the defense and hoped whatever Mystique was planning to do wouldn't hurt either one of them.

"It's uh...inside." Fritz pointed to the warehouse. He could see a faint light on inside.

"You sure it's here?" Logan sniffed the air again. "Something doesn't smell right."

_"Fuck," _Fritz cursed himself. "That's what the guy on the _phone_ told me." He just realized he still had his helmet on so he un-strapped it and set it on the back of the bike.

"Then lets just hurry this up." Logan started towards the door. "I don't like it here." He opened the door with a creak and cautiously stepped inside.

Fritz followed and stepped around the Canadian to get a better look. The warehouse was divided into smaller rooms, like a house. _They_ were in the main lobby, and then off to the sides were smaller rooms that were separated by glass windows. In front of them was an old reception desk. The walls were an off white with a little yellow here and there. The floor was covered in dust and the majority of the windows that were supposed to separate the rooms were either gone or smashed. This place hadn't been used for quite some time.

Logan saw a light in the room across from them. "Ok, what's going on kid?" Logan knew this place hadn't been used for many years and he also knew that there wasn't a car in here.

"Not a _clue_." Technically Fritz wasn't lying because he really didn't have a clue about what was going on.

Logan moved in front of Fritz and opened the door to the room with the light. Logan looked around and saw that the light was coming from a lamp on another desk in the far corner of the room. Behind the desk sat the blue skinned woman, Mystique.

"What the hell?!" Logan unsheathed his claws and moved back a step.

"I was wondering when you were going to show up." Mystique leaned back in the chair and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Sorry." Fritz stepped away from Logan and moved closer to the shape shifter fearing what Logan might do.

"You mean you--and her?" Logan couldn't believe the two of them had tricked him into coming here.

"That's right Wolverine. I've shown Fritz what humans are _really_ like," Mystique said, not taking her eyes off of Logan.

"What are you doing bub? What's she been telling you?" Logan took a step towards Fritz but kept his guard up.

"She's told me the truth. Humans aren't going to _accept_ us." Fritz said. "You have to realize that Logan."

"She hasn't told you the _truth_ kid, she's _lying_ to you." Logan was getting pretty upset at Fritz now. "She's using you, Fritz."

"No she's not! I'm helping her help you." Fritz reached into his pocket.

"I can't let you do that pal." Logan charged at Mystique but stopped half way there and looked down. In his stomach was a yellow dart. He looked up with blurred vision and saw Fritz standing there with a tranquilizer gun in his hand. "...no," was all Logan got out before he sank to his knees and collapsed on the floor.

Mystique got out of her chair and walked over to Wolverine's limp body. "Quickly, we don't have much time before those tranquilizers wear off." She lifted Logan by his arms while Fritz carried his feet. The two struggled to move him into the next room; he weighed more than it looked like. Fritz forgot about Logan's adimantium skeleton. They lifted Logan up and laid him down on an empty table.

This room was different than the others. The walls were clean, the floor was shiny, and there weren't any windows, instead there were normal white walls. In the corner sat a large computer. Against the far wall was another table with tools of all sorts. To Fritz's left were a few cabinets. Over the head of the table where Logan lay unconscious, there was an odd looking machine. It had more buttons and knobs and levers than Fritz thought possible on one device. It was square around the base but elongated into a swivel arm at the top. The end of the arm was shaped like a "U". Around the inside of the "U" were multiple colored lights that were flashing ant random intervals.

"What's _that_?" Fritz pointed at the machine.

"That," Mystique said. "Is a magnetically charged particle neuro condenser." She walked over to it and started pushing buttons.

"Oh yeah, one of those, duh." Fritz said as he sat down in a chair.

Mystique gave him a sour look, but then continued entering numbers into the magnetic particle thingy. "This is what's going to help Wolverine here _see _Xavier's lies. It's similar to telepathy." A couple minutes later Mystique walked over to the other side, then came back. "We're ready."  
Fritz jumped up and walked over to her. "What should _I_ do?"

"Nothing, you've helped by bringing him here. Now all you have to do is stand back and watch." Mystique lowered the "U" and fit it around Logan's head. She then walked over to the computer in the corner and sat down. Mystique typed something into the computer, hit a few keys then turned her chair around to face Logan and the machine.

The giant machine started to hum. The lights on the "U" began flashing faster and in a more synchronized pattern. Logan's eyes shot open but he didn't move. Fritz was about to jump up and check on him but Mystique gave him a nasty look so he sat back down. The machine started vibrating uncontrollably, and then it all just stopped; as if someone had cut the power.

Mystique stood up and walked over to the table. She removed the "U" from around Logan's head and pushed the machine away. Apparently it was on wheels because it rolled away into the corner. Fritz got up from the chair and walked over to the two. Mystique had a clipboard in her hand and was writing something down.

"What now?" Fritz asked, looking down at Logan. The bigger mutant still hadn't closed his eyes. Fritz noticed something strange though. Logan's eyes weren't there natural brown, but a light green. "Are his eyes supposed to look like Frankenstein's?" Fritz asked the blue skinned woman.

"Completely normal," Mystique said. She set the clipboard down and walked around the table to where the machine used to be so she was directly over Logan's head. She looked down into his eyes, "Get up." She commanded him as if he was going to listen.

But, to Fritz's surprise, he sat up willingly. Mystique took a step back, "stand." Logan did as she said; he got off the table and stood up. Mystique walked around him slowly. Logan stood still, he didn't move or flinch or anything. It was like he couldn't, even if he wanted to.

Fritz walked around to face Wolverine. The man had a blank expression on his face. The only thing that showed sings of life were his piercing green eyes. "Is he going to be okay?" Fritz waved his hand in front of Logan's face.

"What's not _okay_?" Mystique asked. "Logan, listen to me, what do you think of humans?" She was looking at him directly in the eyes.

"**Humans are a plague. They need to be destroyed.**" Logan said in a monotone voice.

"Whoa, wait! Hold on." Fritz turned to Mystique expecting an answer. "What the hell is he talking about?"

"What do you mean? This is what we wanted." Mystique said with a grin.

"No! _I _wanted to help Logan and the professor _understand _the humans not _turn_ them against the humans." Fritz was starting to think Mystique didn't have the same idea.

"Hahaha, silly boy. Don't you understand yet? Mutants and humans can't live together. So one of them has to go, and it's not going to be us." Mystique said.

"So you were just _using_ me to get to Logan and Xavier!" Fritz stepped back a bit. "I should have known." Fritz ran over to Logan's side and started shaking him. "Come on Logan, snap out of it."

Mystique pulled a device out of her pocket and swung it in the air. "This is a neruo controller. He'll only listen to the one holding this." She held it tightly in her hand. "Now, you can give this up, and help me get to Xavier, or I can test out my new _toy_ on you." Mystique was good at manipulating people so she was hoping this kid would be easy too.

"...no. I can't let you do that." Fritz lunged at the remote in Mystique's hand but she sidestepped and he hit the ground. Fritz jumped to his feet and spun around the face the shape-shifting mutant. "Give me that!" Fritz yelled at her. _"Bravo, she's really going to listen."_

"I gave you a choice. Sorry you chose the _har_d one." Mystique said. "Logan," she spun the controller in her hand a few times. "Kill him."

Fritz looked back and forth between Mystique, and Logan. Mystique had the remote that controlled Logan, but Fritz couldn't get to the remote as long as Mystique was controlling Logan _with_ it. He suddenly had an idea. But Logan came out of nowhere before Fritz could react and shoved him into the file cabinets against the wall.

Fritz regained his balance and ran off to the other side of the room. He knew he didn't stand a chance like this so he crouched to the floor and mutated. His skin darkened to its shade of crimson red as his head elongated to form a beak of razor sharp teeth. He finished his mutation just as Logan charged at him again, slamming Fritz into the wall behind him. He crashed into the wall busting the drywall but not going through. Fritz slid to his feet and dodged a punch from zombie Logan.

Fritz noticed that Logan was stronger like this, but he was also much slower and dumber. Fritz hoped he could use this to his advantage. He ducked under another one of Logan's punches but didn't see Logan's other arm and was knocked back a few feet. Logan started to advance on Fritz again. Fritz pushed heavy oak table over to block Logan's path. It didn't do much because Logan merely pushed it out of the way like it was made of plastic.  
Fritz looked around the room quickly; he'd forgotten about Mystique. She was standing in the far corner of the room with the remote device still in her hand. He hoped his idea would still work. He had to get closer to Mystique though. Fritz stepped around Logan and started to sprint towards the blue skinned woman. But he didn't get very far before agonizing pain shot through his shoulder; Logan had grabbed onto one of Fritz's wings. His feet slipped out from under him and he fell to the floor hitting his head hard on the tile.

He lay there not feeling or recognizing much. Fritz felt two strong hands grip his arms and lift him into the air. He was then slammed twice into the wall. The drywall crumbled and fell to the ground as Fritz's body hit it. He looked up to see Logan and his expressionless face. He was slammed into the wall again which actually helped to clear his head a little; not that it didn't hurt like hell though.

Before Logan could abuse him anymore, Fritz grabbed onto Logan's forearms with his hands and sank his sharp talons into Logan's flesh. Wolverine didn't show any sign of pain, but Fritz knew that if he could, he would have.

Logan dropped Fritz immediately and tried to stop the bleeding. Fritz knew the wounds would heal in a matter of seconds so he dashed away from Logan and made his way towards Mystique. She saw him coming but didn't move, only grinned. Fritz was once again forced to the ground as something hit him in the side, hard. Wolverine had thrown a desk lamp at him. The zombified mutant unsheathed his claws and ran towards Fritz.

Fritz tried to stand up but stumbled and fell again. He backed up as far as he could until he ran into the neuro condenser. Logan pulled his arm back and thrust his clawed fist forward towards Fritz. The red mutant ducked and swung his tail out at Logan's legs. Logan stumbled and lost his balance. His claws tore through the metal casing of the neuro condenser like it was paper. The lights in the room flashed and Logan's body started to shake. Smoke billowed out of the damaged machine as Wolverine fell to the floor, unconscious.

Fritz jumped to his feet and looked across the room at Mystique. "Give me the controller." Fritz clutched his aching side in pain.

"What's with you X-Men and always fucking ruining my damn plans!?" Mystique threw the remote on the ground and was about to charge forward when a red beam smashed hit her in the chest and sent her flying through the wall.

_"What the?"_ Fritz looked around the room and in ran Scott with his hand on his visor. Scott ran across the room and looked out the hole he made in the wall.

"Damn it!" Scott swore. He took his hand away from his visor and looked over at Fritz and the unconscious Logan. "What the hell happened?" Scott ran over to the two and knelt down next to Logan to check for a pulse.

"Uh...long story." Fritz cloaked his wings around him and flinched as he moved his injured one.

"We have all night." Xavier said right as he entered the room. "How are you Fritz?"

"I'll _live._" Fritz responded.

"Good. Now then, Jean, would you please help Scott carry Logan into the Velocity?" The professor asked as Jean walked into the room.

"Sure professor." She used her telekinesis to lift Logan off the ground and slowly carried him out of the room.

"How did you know we were here?" Fritz was still holding his side.

"The machine you used on Logan played havoc with Cerebro," Xavier said.

"Oh, about that..." Fritz started but was interrupted by the professor.

"Don't worry, I know Mystique can be very persuasive sometimes." Xavier said. "I think we should be getting back to the institute now." Xavier turned around and rolled out of the room.

Fritz almost forgot, he ran to the far side of the room and grabbed the neuro controller off the ground. Satisfied that it still looked like it was in working order, he left the room and followed the professor to the Velocity.

Fritz explained the whole thing to the professor and the rest of the X-Men; everything from first meeting Mystique, to right before Scott showed up. He also told them all about the neuro remote. Now that the condenser was destroyed, there was no way Xavier or Beast could try to find a way of breaking Logan's hypnotism. Beast had finished studying the remote and came up with nothing. No one could figure out how to break Mystique's hypnosis.

Logan stood there not moving, not blinking, not doing anything. If no one could figure out how to bring Logan back to normal, he would stay like this forever. Not even the professor and his telepathy could help Wolverine.

All the students and teachers of the institute were in Xavier's study with Logan. Fritz slowly got up and moved over to him. "Logan, if you can hear me, I'm so sorry." Fritz bowed his head. "I never should have let Mystique trick me into helping her. This is all my fault. I'm sorry." Fritz looked up at he once strong man, now he was nothing but an empty shell.

"Wait!" Jean jumped up from the couch she was sitting on. "Give me that." She took the neuro controller from the professor and walked over to Logan. "You said Logan has to do whatever the person holding this remote tells him to do, right?" She asked Fritz.

"Well, yeah." Fritz had a confused look on his face. "But what good is _that_ going to do us? He's still hypnotized."

"Let me try something." Jean looked over at the professor.

"Go ahead, we have nothing to lose, and Logan to gain." The professor rolled a little closer to Jean.

Jean looked up at Logan. "Logan?" She said. Logan turned his head to look her in the face with his strange green eyes. "I'm holding the neuro controller now. So you have to do what I say." She wasn't sure this was going to work. But like the professor said, they had nothing to lose.

"I command you to," she paused and looked around the room at all the faces. "To act for the rest of your life as if you were never hypnotized." She stood back and looked up at him again.

For the first time in a while, Logan closed his green eyes. He moved his head around a bit and when his eyes opened, they were his natural brown. "You did it kid." Logan said. "Thanks." He wrapped Jean up in a big hug.

The rest of the X-Men all rushed over to greet their instructor. They were all happy to see him back to his old self again.

"Good to have you back to normal." Xavier rolled forward and shook Logan's hand.

"Thanks, it's good to _be_ back to normal." Logan turned to face Fritz who was still standing next to the desk.

Fritz walked up to the Canadian and looked down at the ground to avoid eye contact. "I'm sorry Logan." Fritz kept his head down.

Out of nowhere Logan punched Fritz's shoulder rather hard. Fritz looked up suddenly fearing there was more to come but was met with a smile. "_That's_ for the splitting headache bub."

Fritz didn't know whether he should punch Logan back or hug him. "Sorry about that."

"How about you? I saw what I did to ya', just couldn't stop myself." Logan admitted.

"I'm fine. I actually don't feel that bad at all." Fritz couldn't feel any of the injuries he sustained while he was morphed. It's like they all just went away when he morphed back to normal. "Is there anything I can do to make up for all this?'

"Just don't pull any kind of shit like this again and we're even." Logan extended his hand to shake Fritz's but pulled back and the last second. "Oh, and destroy that remote thing for me."

"Done." Fritz took the controller from Jean and dropped it on the floor where he stepped on it with the heel of his shoe. He was satisfied when he heard the crunch of metal and plastic breaking. Fritz reached for Logan's outstretched hand and shook it, finally feeling better about he whole thing.

**Author's note: **There's the fifth chapter. So much writing. It hurts my brain. I think this is the most I've ever written. Like combining all of my school work together, and this is still more. Ok, so maybe I exaggerated. But you know what I mean. If you read this chapter, please pay the fine of one review. Until next time.

Sherman


	6. VI

**Author's note: **Okay, so if you couldn't tell, I've changed the rating to R. It could be for the better. _I_ don't even know yet. Also, some of you sound as if you think I was stopping at chapter five. Then again, I don't blame you, Until next time, does kind of sound like a closing. But don't worry I have some more planned for this story. I don't think it will be ending anytime soon. If all goes as planned that is. Sorry it took so long to post. I've been searching for a job and studying for the past week. Then I went to my friend's cabin in Payson over the weekend. So I didn't even start writing until Sunday. I hope I don't get this side tracked again. Thank you all who have reviewed.

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"Mr. Jager!" Fritz's Biology teacher, Mr. Hansen, yelled. The man had pronounced Fritz's last name with a "J" rather than a "Y", the correct German pronunciation. This annoyed Fritz almost as much as freshmen.

Fritz knew Mr. Hansen was smart enough to know how to pronounce his last name, but chose not to. He couldn't figure out why. Could it be that he hadn't done any homework for this class since he got there? "Yeah?" Fritz sat up strait in his chair.

"Have you heard a word of what I've said?" Mr. Hansen had picked up his meter stick. Fritz guessed this was to scare the students in his class. Maybe by holding a wooden stick in his hands, the kids would be more likely to listen to him.

"Of course." Fritz said with a yawn.

"How could you if you were asleep." Mr. Hansen walked around to Fritz's desk twirling the ruler in his hand.

_"Was I?" _Fritz hadn't meant to fall asleep. He just couldn't help it with such a _boring_ class. Did he care about plants and trees and forests and crap? Not really. Fritz had nothing to say to Mr. Hansen. He only sat there behind his desk and waited for his teacher to speak again.

"Well?" Mr. Hansen stopped at the front of Fritz's desk smacking the meter stick against the palm of his hand. "You don't do your homework, you're late for class, and you constantly fall asleep. You're digging yourself a _hole_ Mr. Jager."

There he goes again, the whole "J" thing. "I don't have a shovel." Fritz said as if he didn't understand what his teacher was talking about. This caused a few giggles around the room but nothing _more_.

"That's it. Go!" Mr. Hansen pointed to the door. "Just go to the attendance office."

Fritz got up slowly, packed up his backpack and walked out of the room silently. He wandered down the hall, not wanting to go to the office that much. So he made random detours like walking clear across campus in the opposite direction. He even stopped by Kitty's classroom just so he could see her face. He looked through the window and there she was in the middle of the room.

He stared at her for a few seconds before noticing the person next to her. He kept poking her and trying his best to tickle her. Fritz couldn't believe it, it was Lance. Kitty looked a bit annoyed by Lance's attempts to get her attention.

_"Wait, isn't Lance old enough to be a senior? But he's in a freshmen math class. What a fucking dumb ass! He failed math three years in a row! Fucking retard." _Knowing that didn't make Fritz feel any better though. Lance was in one of Kitty's classes and _he _wasn't. At least Kitty didn't look amused. Maybe that meant he still had a chance with her. Fritz tore his gaze away from Kitty and _finally_ started walking towards the attendance office.

Fritz was actually feeling pretty good. He was told the mansion would be getting some new students today. He wasn't going to be the new guy anymore. Even better, the new mutants were all younger than he was; finally, some _minions _to control.

He was told the new mutants would be arriving all at once, at around one o'clock. Luckily he would be at school until 2:35 so he wouldn't be swarmed by a wave of freshmen. He couldn't stand freshmen. Well except one, Kitty. But she was an exception. He just couldn't stand their maturity level. Always annoying you and asking the dumbest questions that have no _real_ answers, all for the shear joy of knowing they confused someone older than them.

After about ten minutes of walking around the school he looked at his watch. His next class was going to start in a matter a minutes. So he decided to stop avoiding the attendance office and started in its direction. However the bell rang seconds before he was about to open the door. "Damn. So close. Oh well, don't want to be late for third hour." He said aloud as he turned on his heel and walked casually toward his English class.

Fritz, Evan, Kurt and Scott jumped out of the red sports car after they pulled into the garage. Since Jean got an SUV all the girls, which was usually just Rogue because Lance drove Kitty to school every morning, drove to school by themselves. This way they could leave later giving themselves more time to do girl stuff in the morning.

The four boys walked into the kitchen all dreading the arrival of the new mutants. All four of them knew what it was like when _they _first got their powers. Scott blew a hole through his adopted parent's house. Evan would constantly pop basketballs during practice. Kurt teleported himself inside the women's changing room at the circus. And Fritz would accidentally mutate in public.

So they all knew what to expect when they walked into the mansion. In fact, they were greeted by a ball of ice smashing into the wall to their left. The four older mutants stopped where they were and contemplated leaving the mansion to go on a long drive. But just as Scott reached into his pocket for his keys, Logan walked into the kitchen heading towards the garage with a sour look on his face.

"I give up! You four are in charge until Xavier gets back." Logan left the kitchen and jumped on his bike before any of the four mutants standing in the doorway could respond.

Logan started his bike and sped off down the driveway and through the front gates. Scott dropped his backpack to the floor and leaned back against the kitchen counter with a fearful look on his face. "We...have to take care of..._them_?" Scott pointed into the foyer at the nine new mutants.

The foyer looked like a college party. All nine of the new recruits were blasting and shooting and jumping all around the room. "Everybody stop!" Scott yelled switching into fearless leader mode.

No one seemed to listen. To their right a small glowing ball blew up with a boom scaring the four older mutants. They jumped back and looked around the room. Two of the new mutants were firing who knows what out of their hands while another was propelling himself through the air. In the corner was a group of mutants that all looked the same and a dog that was running around a girl creating fireworks above everyone.

There were two mutants in the middle of the room. One looked red hot, and the other was more a black charcoal color. Another boom came from their left and they saw the source. The last new recruit sat in the corner tossing little explosives around the room.

"Everyone stop!" Scott yelled again in his loudest fearless leader voice. To no ones surprise, the new recruits didn't listen.

"Vhat now fearless leader?" Kurt asked plainly.

"Uh..." Scott looked around the room. "They're all in the same room, so all we have to do is get them to stop."

"Really?" Evan asked with a smirk.

"Shut up Evan," Scott softly pushed Evan back a bit. "You two," Scott pointed to Evan and Kurt. "Get everyone on the right side of the room to meet in the Danger room. Me and Fritz will get the other side."

"What do we say to get them to follow," Evan asked.

"I don't know, make it up." Scott said before he and Fritz ran off to their side of the room.

"So does anyone know where the Professor is?" Scott asked the nine new mutants standing in front of him.

"Said he was leaving for some type of urgent meeting." The blonde girl said.

"Really? He didn't tell _us_." Scott said a little confused.

"That's probably because if was urgent." The Asian girl said smartly.

"Yeah—well...how long has he been gone?" Scott asked feeling embarrassed that a _girl_ almost _four _years younger than he was just made herself look smarter them him.

"He left about two hours ago; a little bit after we go here" The Spanish kid said. "He left Logan in charge."

"Well it looks like _Logan_ had an urgent meeting to go to also." Scott turned around and looked at Evan, Fritz, and Kurt.

"Oh, this is Kurt, Evan, and Fritz. I'm Scott," Scott put in at the last minute.

"Roberto, Ray, Sam, Bobby, Amara, Jamie, Tabitha, Jubilee, Rahne." Scott heard from the group of kids.

"Uh...we might have to go over names again later." Scott said as he rubbed the back of his head. "Who's up for a little exercise?"

"Do we have-"One of the new mutants started but Scott cut them off.

"Good. Just hang out here for a minute." Scott turned around and walked out of the Danger room. Evan, Fritz, and Kurt looked at each other, shrugged, and then followed Scott outside.

They made their way to the control room above the Danger room. "So what's going on man?" Fritz asked after a few seconds of silence.

"If the new kids are occupied with the Danger room, then we won't have to look after them." Scott said. They got into the elevator that would bring them down to the control room.

"Hey Scott," Kurt said. "Vhat did you tell the new recruits to get them to shut up?"

"I said they'd get a chance to fly the X-Jet." Scott stepped out of the elevator and started up the main controls. "What about you two?"

Evan made sure he was far enough away from Scott before he told him. "Uhm...we told them they could drive your car."

Scott stopped what he was doing and whirled on Evan. "You what?!"

"Hey don't get mad at _me_." Evan moved back even more. "It was _Kurt's_ idea."

"No it vasn't!" Kurt said defensively and punched Evan's arm.

"Ow." Evan rubbed his arm where Kurt hit him.

"Just forget it." Scott said angrily. He turned around and finished booting up the main controls. He flipped a switch and talked into a mic. "This is just a simple test. Think of it as P.E."

The four older mutants could hear the younger ones groan. "Just follow the course. Uh..." Scott was making this up off the top of his head. "First one to the finish line...gets ten dollars." He looked back at the other three mutants standing behind him and mouthed "sorry". He turned back around and spoke in the mike again. "Ready, go!"

The floor of the danger room shifted here and there as walls and other objects came up to block the new recruits paths. Some parts of the floor changed height others started spinning. In the end it looked like a giant fun house.

Fritz stood in front of the window looking down at the younger mutants. They all seemed to be doing pretty well except for Jamie. Every time he got bumped a few more duplicates of him would appear. This was a little hard for him because he had to run back and round up all of his duplicates.

Bobby was doing the best only because he was freezing the ground making the others slip and fall every time one of them was about to pass him up. All nine of them jumped, stumbled, and climbed over the obstacles blocking their path. Some of them made good use of their powers, but others however looked as if they had no idea they even had powers. They seemed fine in the foyer; maybe it was just the pressure.

Scott had made this coarse a little longer than normal so by now the new mutants were only about half way through. Fritz heard a hiss behind him so he turned around as the elevator door opened; in the center of the elevator stood Logan and in a wheel chair by his side, Xavier.

"How are they doing?" Xavier asked nonchalantly.

Scott spun around and looked at the professor. "Oh, hey professor. They're doing pretty good." Scott said nervously. "Sorry _we_ didn't tell you we were going to run them in a sim. But you being gone and all..."

"It's perfectly all right Scott." Xavier rolled forward and took over the controls. "However, I would prefer them running simulations in their uniforms. Safety precaution." The Professor reached over and pushed a button. The computer screen asked for a password and he entered LEGENDS.

The Danger room floor once again shifted and moved around. The walls retreated and the obstacles shank back under the floor. The nine mutants down at the bottom stopped with confused looks on their faces.

"Don't worry, you didn't do anything wrong. My meeting is over, so if you all would join me in the study, we can finally get to introductions." Xavier said over the loud speaker.

The nine mutants walked sluggishly out of the Danger room. Xavier turned back to the older mutants in the control room. "Sorry I didn't tell any of you I'd be gone."

"No problem professor," Scott lied. "But if you don't mind me asking, what was the meeting about?"

"How to avoid being swarmed by teenage questions." Xavier said as he rolled back into the elevator.

All four mutants looked at each other in shock. The professor said nothing more, just waited for Logan to join him in the elevator. Logan walked past Fritz who looked away and moved to the other side of the room. It had been almost a week since Mystique tricked Fritz into brainwashing Logan. Logan forgave Fritz on the spot. He said it wasn't Fritz's fault. Mystique could be _very_ persuasive. But Fritz still didn't feel comfortable around the Canadian. There was something that didn't feel right. Maybe it was Fritz's guilt. He didn't really know.

The elevator doors closed slowly with a clicking sound. Scott began shutting down the computers and control panels.

"I can't believe it." Evan said. "Xavier left so he didn't have to deal with the new kids."

"Yeah, but I think he wanted to teach us something." Scott said sticking up for the professor.

"Like _what_?" Fritz asked.

"Like, how to take care of things in case of an emergency." Scott said proudly.

"Shut up man," Kurt said. "He didn't want to deal with the freshmen and you know it."

"No he just wanted-"Scott was cut off by the other three mutants walking into the awaiting elevator. "Fine." Scott joined his fellow teammates and the doors shut.

**Author's note: **Sorry if some of the characters sounded a bit OOC. I forgot to include the New Recruits in the earlier chapters and I didn't want to just throw them in there. I know you probably didn't like reading about their powers and names and whatnot. Again, I didn't want to just throw them into the middle of the story. Hope this chapter wasn't too boring for you; had to be done. I'll try to get the next chapter up sooner then it took to post this one. Oh yeah, sorry to those freshmen who might be reading this. Please don't take the bagging on the freshmen stuff personal. You'll see what I mean in about two years. Please review.


	7. VII

**Author's note: **Hi everyone. Here's another exciting chapter. Sorry this one took so long. I know I said they would be up within a week. I just had so much school shit to take care of. But hopefully I'll start to get some more free time. I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles.

**Andy: **Thanks for reminding me. I guess I kind of got a little side tracked and forgot about some of the important stuff.

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Logan raised his hand in the air at the dinner table. "Can I have you attention?" He looked around at all of the students. Each one looked up at him, some with food in their mouths. "Thanks. The professor and I have been talking about this for a while now. But now that we hand an addition to the team," he motioned with his hand at the new recruits. "We think it's time to choose a second in command."

"Whoa, hold on Logan." Scott stood up from the table. "What about me!? I've been leading the X-Men for a while now. I've been here the _longest_."

Scott _had_ been leading the X-Men for a while, with the exception of Logan. Logan was commander, chief in charge, head honcho; but Scott, being the oldest, kind of just accepted second in command when the X-Men were originally formed. _True_ Scott was the oldest, he had been there the longest, he had the most experience, but that doesn't always mean you're the best suited to lead.

"Well Scott, technically no one ever appointed you to _be_ second in command." Logan didn't know how to word it so he wouldn't make Scott even more upset.

"But...come on professor. Tell him." Scott was making this a bigger deal than it should be.

"I'm sorry Scott, but I've left the decision up to Logan." Xavier expected Scott to understand and act like an adult about it. But instead he was acting like a little kid. Scott was stepping off the trail of becoming second in command _already._

"Whatever. Can I be excused?" Scott left the table, not even expecting an answer, and headed in the direction of the sub-basements.

"Told you he wouldn't take it well." Logan said with a sigh.

"I was hoping he'd take it better than he did though," Xavier said staring at Scott's empty seat.

Logan and Xavier sat in the study. "I hope this was a good idea," Logan said.

"_I_ think so Logan. I've noticed the kids fight bravely beside you, but when you go down, they freeze up and loose their confidence." Xavier said. "They need someone else they can look up to when you're no there."

"Then it _was_ for the best." Logan stood up and left the study.

Fritz wandered around the many sub-basements of the institute trying to relieve his boredom. Since coming to the institute he had always been able to find something to do in his spare time. But today, nothing seemed to hold hi attention. So he decided to explore areas of the mansion he hadn't before.

He turned a corner after walking down a few metal halls and finding numerous empty rooms. It was like a maze down there. He was thinking about turning back when he heard some music coming from a room three doors down. The door was ajar letting a soft glow of light spill out into the darkened hallway.

He walked down to the lit room and opened the door the rest of the way to reveal lifting weights of all sorts. Some were free weights, others were machine; but, all of them looked big and heavy.

Scott lay on his back on a bench in the corner of the room with a bar of weights in his outstretched hands. "Who's there?" He asked because he couldn't look up.

"Just me," Fritz said.

"Oh, what's up Fritz?" Scott asked all the while lifting and lowering the weights above his chest.

"Nothing much. Just trying to find any other secrets to his house I don't know of yet. Like _this_ room," Fritz said. It's not that he couldn't believe there was actually a room in use down in this maze of halls; rather he was surprised.

"Logan helped me set it up." Scott grunted.

"It's uh...nice." Fritz was just trying to make conversation.

"Well if you're just standing around, do you want to give me a hand?" Scott struggle to get the bark back up.

"Sure," Fritz moved across the room to where Scott was laying. He grabbed the weight bar in the middle and helped Scott lift it up and rest it on the racks.

"Thanks," Scott slowly sat up rubbing hi arms. He moved over to a bicep machine and started his set.

"So..." Fritz always felt uncomfortable when he had nothing to talk about. "What's up? You feeling okay? You seemed pretty upset at dinner." Fritz sat down on the bench Scott was just using and jumped up when he noticed the pads were wet from sweat; so, he opted to sit in a shoulder press machine instead.

"How would _you_ feel if you had _your_ position taken away?" Scott asked.

"Come on Scott. You'll make second in command easily. Everyone knows it." Fritz was starting to feel sorry for Scott, Being second in command meant a lot to him. Then again, he was acting like a baby about it; so, Fritz didn't' feel too sorry.

"I know _that_," Scott stopped lifting and walked over to the back wall where he grabbed a towel and a water bottle off of a shelf. "I just think it's bull shit. I shouldn't have to prove myself to them, _again_."

"Well maybe they thought you were slacking or something." Fritz said.

"Maybe. I don't know." Scott slouched down on the bench seat next to him.

"Hey, cheer up man. You've got second in command written all over you." Fritz attempted to cheer Scott up.

"_Yeah_, I've go the position secured." Scott _was_ cheered up. "Thanks for your help buddy."

"Anytime." Fritz got up and walked to the door.

"If you looking for something to do, _Kitty's_ on Kitchen duty." Scott put in before Fritz reached the door.

Fritz quickly turned around with a smile on his face, "thanks." He waved bye to Scott and took off down the hall.

Fritz entered the kitchen and saw a nearly empty table. In front of the sink with her arms covered in soapsuds stood Katherine Pryde. In the sink of soapy water were stacks of dirty dishes. Plates and bowls of all shapes were stacked to the rim of the sink while cups, pots, and pans cluttered the counter to her left.

She was wearing a pair of light blue sweat pants with a pink top that was a little damp in places; it didn't look like she was having fun. Fritz gathered up what little dishes were left on the table and set them in the pile next to kitty.

She looked over at him, "thanks."

Fritz grabbed a dry towel out of a drawer and walked around to her other side where he picked up a wet plate from the clean stack and started drying it off.

"Thanks again," Kitty smile at him before turning back to the task at hand.

Kitty would wash the dirty dishes then hand them to Fritz who would dry them and put them in their proper cupboard; they kept this up for a while in silence. Fritz wanted to say something to break the silence but he found it hard to talk to Kitty sometimes, especially when she was this close.

"What do you think about being second in command?" Fritz asked. _"That was_ _easy."_ He thought with a sigh of relief.

"I think it's like, a lot of responsibility." Kitty said. "I think it'd be fun though. I'd like to try it." They had finished the stack of dished in the sink so Kitty filled it again with the ones on the counter. "Like, what about you."

"Yeah right. I mean, don't get me wrong, it would be fun and all; but I've only been here about three weeks." Fritz said. He knew there was no chance that he'd be second in command. After all, he _was_ the newest X-Man.

"Oh come on Fritz. Like, I've seen you in the danger room before. You're like, just as good as anyone of us." Kitty said trying to cheer him up.

"Yeah well...thanks." Fritz looked into her eyes and she looked back. They were so beautiful. He could stare at her eyes forever and never get bored.

"So like, tell me about yourself. I kinda feel bad cause you've been here so long and I really don't know that much about you." Kitty looked away from Fritz and finished up the plate in her hand.

"Um...well, what do you want to know?" Fritz asked her.

"What's your favorite movie?" She asked.

"Star Wars." Fritz answered without hesitation. He remembered seeing the movies when he was very young; and ever since then, they had been his all time favorite. "What about you?"

Kitty though about it for a while; "like, anything with Orlando Bloom." She blushed a little but just moved on to the next question. "Who's your favorite band?"

"Papa Roach and Disturbed." Fritz said. "You?"

"Good Charlotte." Kitty said. She thought of more personal question to ask. "What religion are you?"

"Uh...I'm not." Fritz answered.

"What do you mean you're like, not?" Kitty, although Jewish, didn't really care what religion Fritz was. She just wanted to know more about him.

"My dad never had me baptized. I'm glad actually. I hope I don't offend you or anything; but, I don't believe in it." Fritz didn't know if Kitty would take offense to it or not. That's why he usually didn't talk about religion. For one, he didn't believe in it and two, people usually got mad at him and tried to tell him all the goods of having a faith and all that bull shit.

"None taken." Kitty didn't want to push into the subject any deeper, especially if Fritz was anti-religious. "You said your _dad_ never baptized you. Like what about your mom? Or are your parents divorced."

"She never married my dad. After she had me, she left him; I never met her." Fritz cursed her under his breath. "Neither of us have heard from her since then."

"I'm so sorry." She seemed really concerned. "I hope it's not like, too hard to talk about."

"Oh no. I never met her, for all I care she could stay out of my life forever." Fritz never knew what it was like to have a mom. He was doing fine so far. He didn't really want that bitch to come back anyway.

"You mean you wouldn't even want to like, meet her? Say hi or something?" Kitty couldn't tell what it would be like without a mother; her parents had always gotten along.

"Nope, never. If she didn't want me in _her_ life, I don't want her in _mine_," Fritz said.

"Well, I guess that like, makes sense," Kitty said. They stood there in silence once again finishing the sink of dishes.

_Fritz_ decided to break the silence this time. "What do you drink, Pepsi or Coke?"

"Pepsi," Kitty said.

"Coke's better," Fritz said jokingly.

"Gross. Don't you know, Coke's like, a toilet cleaner?" Kitty said with a disgusted look on her face.

"So, it still tastes good, and it's better than Pepsi." He said and stuck his tongue out at her.

"No, Pepsi's like, a hundred times better." Kitty retorted.

"Coke's better times a thousand." Fritz said like a little kid fighting with his crush.

"Pepsi times infinity!" Kitty said as she splashed him with the soapy water.

Fritz was shocked but countered back with a _cup_ of water. It hit Kitty's side because she moved. She tensed up from the hot water and stood rigid for a few seconds before she filled up a bowl and dumped it on him. Fritz jumped back and almost slipped in the puddle on the floor.

They looked at each other for a while, neither one making another move. "I'm wet." Fritz said.

"So am I." Kitty said sounding a bit annoyed.

"Oh no, I'm not mad." Fritz said quickly.

"Good!" Kitty reached for the back of the sink and came out with the squirt hose. She didn't give Fritz any time to move before she pulled the trigger.

"Aaah!" Fritz yelled as he tried to dodge the incoming stream of water; but, he was too slow and it hit his shirt, instantly soaking through.

Kitty shot another burst of water at him, which he ducked under; but she hit his pants when he stood back up. Fritz quickly filled another cup with water and splashed it on her. She dropped the hose trying to avoid it. Fritz picked it up and shot a stream of water at Kitty's back. She spun around on him, laughing. He shot at her again but she phased through it and quickly advanced on him. He squirt her again soaking the front of her shirt but tripped over his feet while backing away and fell backwards. Since Kitty was so close to him she tripped over his feet too and landed on top of him with one leg on either side of _his_ coming very close to kneeing something of value to him.

Kitty looked down to see a very surprised Fritz. He had dropped the hose and now lay there with his hands to his sides and Kitty straddling his leg. They looked into each other's eyes for what seemed like hours but they knew to be only seconds. Kitty opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by the doorbell.

"Oh, that's like, for me!" She jumped off of Fritz and helped him to his feet before running out of the kitchen and towards the front door. Fritz slowly walked out of the kitchen in pursuit but stopped when he saw who was at the door.

Lance, he had his _filthy_ arms around her waist and bent down to kiss her. She kissed him back and then ran up the stairs; probably to change into something dry. Fritz walked into foyer and was about to shut the door with Lance still outside when the mudslide saw him.

"What are you up to loser?" Lance asked with a smug grin on his face.

"Nothing much Lance." Fritz said to the older mutant.

"Why's my Pretty Kitty wet?" He asked with a look that said, _"if you try anything, I'll skin you alive."_

Fritz didn't want to tell Kitty's boyfriend they were playing with water in the kitchen because he knew Lance would take it out of control. "A pipe broke in kitchen and she was helping me fix it."

Before Lance could say anything more, Kitty came bounding down the stairs with a dry pair of cloths on. Lance turned to go when she got to the door. "Sorry I can't like, stay and help clean up the mess Fritz." She said honestly.

"Not a problem, just go and have fun," Fritz said.

"Oh we will. Thanks for your concern!" Lance shouted back from his jeep.

Kitty waved bye and ran off down the front stairs to Lance's waiting vehicle. Fritz's heart sank as the two drove off into the cool night.

**Author's note:** Yay! Another chapter down. Or is it up in this case? I'll try to get the next chapter up sooner, but it's going to be hard with Halo 2 in my possession. I might get a little sidetracked. Anywho, thanks for reading and please review.


	8. VIII

**Author's note:** OMG! How long has it been since I updated? I think a month and four days. I suck at updating. Well I do have an ass load of finals so that doesn't help. Anywho, sorry about keeping you guys waiting.

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Fritz heard Kitty hadn't come home until this morning. _"What the hell des Lance have that can hold her attention for over eight hours!?" _Fritz wondered.

Right now he stood at the top of a large platform in the corner of the Danger Room. He looked down upon all of the other X-Men. In this simulation, they had to last as long as possible without being shot by one of Beast's creations; a spherical machine that shot yellow paint balls from the many holes around its surface.

This "hunter" was about half the size of a full-grown man. It floated about ten feet in the air and was fast as hell. It was on the opposite side of the room now. So Fritz had sometime to spare.

Everyone knew that this simulation was another one of Logan's second in command tests. Logan hadn't prohibited the new recruits from attempting any of his tests because he knew they weren't good enough to pass them. He just didn't want to deny them the right to try. However, all of the new recruits stopped trying after they miserably failed the first three tests except two of them, Bobby, who was now called Iceman, and Ray, who was Berserker. These two put up a good fight for the first four and a half minutes, but now they were waiting outside of the danger room after being bombarded by the "hunter".

Evan was also out of the simulation already. He mad the mistake of wearing his skateboard helmet which obstructed his view and was shot from the side.

All the others were doing pretty good. It was now about seventeen minutes into the simulation and all of the reaming X-Men were holding their own against the "hunter".

Fritz was surprised he had survived _this _long. He thought he would have been shot earlier on; but Fritz had managed to evade the "hunter" every time. Each time the "hunter" found him; someone would be seen running behind it. Since the machine had better sight for motion, it would chase the moving X-Man rather than the motionless Fritz. That's how Fritz ended up on top of the platform. He was about to get shot when Evan ran by and got shot in the side instead. Fritz took that opportunity to flee to safer grounds.

So what if he wasn't down with the others, this was a test to see how long you could last; and last time Fritz checked, hiding was the best possible way to win.

So there he stood in his mutated form in relative safety while all of his teammates scrambled, jumped and ran for cover; Fritz planned on staying up there until the "hunter" found him.

"Damn," he cursed himself when he lost sight of the robot; his thoughts of Kitty distracted him.

Fritz scanned the room for the floating 'bot but couldn't find it anywhere. He didn't like this. He was probably the most _vulnerable,_ way up here unprotected. If he didn't know where the "hunter" was, he didn't stand a very good chance. But, lucky for him, the robot made a humming noise, and Fritz could hear it underneath him.

He slowly looked over the edge and saw the robot hovering above Shadowcat about to shoot. Before Fritz new what he was doing, he was in the air falling towards the machine. He landed on top of it forcing the robot to the ground. Fritz dug his talons into the metal and pulled in both directions. The "hunter" frazzled and sizzled before it made a loud screeching noise. Fritz got off slowly, satisfied when it didn't move.

"Come on Fritz! The simulation was to _avoid_ the robot as long as you can, not _destroy_ it." Scott said angrily.

The simulation shut down and the metallic doors opened. Beasts walked into the room and inspected his creation.

"Sorry Beast." Fritz said.

"Not a problem. When you work at this school, you expect things like this to happen." Beast shrugged it off.

"Good job bub," Logan said from behind Fritz.

"…thanks?" Fritz was confused. He thought Logan was going to talk to him about fallowing Danger Room rules.

"Does that mean you don't know why I'm congratulating you?" Logan asked.

"Yeah, pretty much," Fritz responded.

"You saw that one of your teammates was in trouble and you broke the rules to save them. Your team is number one Fritz. You do whatever it takes to keep them safe. Even if it means going against your commands." Logan explained. "Now, who wants to help me clean up the Danger Room?"

Scott looked at Kurt who looked back. They winked at each other and both pushed Fritz forward out of the group. "Hey, what the-" Fritz was cut off by Logan.

"Thanks for volunteering Fritz." Logan clapped Fritz on the back. "The rest of you can go."

"I think it's time for a break from training." The professor sat behind his desk in his study with all the students cluttered around the floor and on the couch fighting for more room. "That's why I've decided to take you all skiing.

"Yeah!" Evan called out.

"Wahoo!" Kurt and Scott high fived each other.

The room exploded with talk of snow and catching big air. Some boasted about snow boarding skills they knew they didn't have while others talked about shopping at the stretch malls.

"Okay okay, quit down," Xavier said calmly; he too was excited about the trip. "We'll leave tomorrow, so be sure you pack enough for a few days stay. I've already contacted your parents so you don't have to worry."

The new recruits got up and left the room faster than anyone would have thought possible. The seven X-Men went there own ways. Some headed to their rooms, others to the kitchen for lunch.

Fritz sat at his computer vividly watching the screen when Scott knocked on the door and walked in.

"Hey, let's go for a Danger Room sim." Scott must have been board if he was asking someone to join him in the Danger Room.

"No thank you, I've got to pack for the trip," Fritz lied. He hadn't even thought about packing yet.

"But you're just playing on the computer," Scott said.

"I'm doing homework." Fritz was actually playing command and conquer and he knew Scott knew that.

"Fritz, it's Christmas break, you don't have homework," Scott said.

"Prove it," Fritz shot back.

Scott knew he wasn't going to win; so, he left Fritz's room and went to find someone else who was crazy enough to run a sim. with him.

Fritz had felt bad about making Scott run a Danger Room session by himself; now he wasn't to sure. He was pinned behind a rock while red concussive beams flashed over his head. The beams hit the rock he was leaning against jarring his whole body. Scott must have been having fun or else he would have stopped firing.

Fritz noticed a break in Scott's attack and took this moment to jump into the air and spread his wings; he circled around to face Scott. The older mutant fired a blast at the air born Fritz who easily dodged it.

Fritz dived down towards Scott dodging every eye blast fired at him. Fritz tackled Scott to the ground holding tightly onto Scott's shoulders. Scott's head hit the ground hard knocking his visor off.

"Oh no…" Fritz said before Scott opened his eyes.

The winged mutant let out a yelp as the red wave engulfed him and threw him into the opposite wall; he dropped to the ground, motionless.

"…up man," Fritz heard from somewhere far off. "Wake up Fritz." Fritz slowly opened his eyes and saw Scott kneeling next to him.

Fritz sat up and rubbed his head. "Ow…" He said as he felt a rather large bump.

"Sorry about that." Scott said. "Can't help it."

"Yeah, it's fine." Fritz said.

"Lets call it a night." Scott said as he helped Fritz stand.

"Sounds good." Fritz seemed distracted. He cloaked his wings and horridly walked out of the Danger Room muttering something.

_"What the hell!?"_ Fritz though as he looked at his taloned hands; he couldn't mutate back. That's why he left the Danger Room in such a hurry.

Fritz didn't know what he was doing wrong. He was doing exactly what he always did. Just as he got to his door though he felt his hands stretch and change. _"Finally."_ He though. The pain from mutating was almost a relief. He was fully normal again. Fritz felt the back of his head for the bump he got in the Danger Room; it wasn't there.

"Sweet," he said allowed. Fritz shut his bedroom door and fell asleep as soon as he hit the bed.


	9. IX

**Author's note: **Thanks for the reviews. I'm going to start the second plot soon so get ready for it. It's going to be a big one! Or a small one…I can't remember.

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The next morning was frantic. Fritz awoke to a mansion full of teenage mutants yelling at the top of their lungs; running up and down the halls. He looked at his clock on the bed stand; 7:53 am.

"Shit!" Fritz rolled out of bed and hurriedly dressed before running into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

He looked at his messy bleached hair in the mirror, "whatever." He said as he rushed out of the room and down the stairs to the kitchen.

Fritz ran back upstairs a few minutes later with a can of soda in one hand, an apple in the other, and a frozen waffle in his mouth.

Fritz sat in the back seat of Jean's SUV. Everyone was crammed into the X-Van, Jean's SUV and Xavier's Rolls Royce. Fritz sat on the right of Kurt and Kitty was on Kurt's left. Jean and Scott sat in the Front and were talking about college and future plans.

Fritz's batteries died in his CD player after about an hour into the trip. _"Fuck, I_ _knew I should have bought some new batteries,"_ he cursed himself. He decided a nap would be good and pulled his pillow out from the back. He propped it against the window and before he dosed off, he looked over at Kitty who was leaning against Kurt's shoulder; Kurt was asleep with a large smile on his face, _"fucker!"_ Fritz yelled in his head before he looked away and fell asleep.

Fritz woke up after a short, rough nap. He looked out the window and saw snow covering the ground. "Finally," he accidentally said out loud.

"Oh, Fritz. Your up," Kitty said from his left. "How'd you sleep?"

"Fine, thanks," Fritz said. "Are we there yet?" He asked Jean.

"No," Jean said.

"Can I drive?" Fritz asked. He had never been more bored in his life.

"No," Jean said instantly.

Fritz slouched in his seat and crossed his arms. "I'm hungry."

"Shut up Fritz," Scott said finally.

The three vehicles carrying everyone from Xavier's institute for gifted youngsters, minus Beast who had volunteered to stay behind and take care of the mansion, pulled up to the front of the Tree Top resort. Slowly, one bye one, the students and teachers stepped out of their cars. Xavier and Ororo went ahead to check in, leaving Logan in charge of the sixteen mutants.

Fritz trudged into his hotel room followed closely by Evan. He and Evan were placed in one room while Scott and Kurt shared a room across the hall. The girls were split up as well as were the new recruits. Logan shared a room with Xavier; Ororo was in a room with Jean.

Fritz looked around the plain room. To his right was a door leading to the bathroom. There were two beds against the right wall and a window at the back; on the left was a TV and a table. Fritz claimed the bed closest to the window and threw is bag on top of it. He and Evan then left the room to meet the others in the lobby for there lift tickets.

Fritz rolled over onto his back and stared up at the sky in aching pain. Evan had convinced Fritz that this hill wasn't hard at all. But Fritz failed to tell Evan that he had never been snowboarding before. So he had stumbled, fallen, tripped and skid in every way and shape possible, down the hill.

Fritz slowly sat up and looked around. He was laying at the bottom of the hill with his legs spread in an awkward position and his board laying a few feet away.

"Hey Fritz!" Kitty said from his left. "Isn't this like, so much fun?"

"…yes." Fritz said plainly. "I love laying in the snow."

"So you're like, hurting pretty bad huh?" She skied up next to him and helped Fritz to his feet.

"Yeah, you could say that." Fritz limped over to his board and picked it up. "What are you up to?"

"I was just about to go cross-country skiing." Kitty looked at Fritz's snowboard. "Do you like, want to come?"

"Yeah! I mean…sure." He new today was going to get better.

Kitty helped Fritz pick out a pair of skies and boots, she showed him how to put them on and strap into the skies. The two left the ski rental shack and headed down the long trail. Fritz didn't really want to go but he new if he went it would mean spending time with Kitty and he didn't want to miss a chance like that.

The two of them continued down the trail making small talk. Conversations ranged from, where did you go to school, to what are your parents like? They were making pretty good time, even _with _Kitty stopping at every flower to smell them and give Fritz a quick lesson on the history of the flower.

Fritz wasn't aware of the time until he looked up at the sun and noticed it was off to the side. He looked at his watch, 4:37pm. They had left at 1:00pm. Had he really been walking with Kitty for four hours? He didn't notice much when he was with her. Like when they first started their hike, Fritz almost walked into a tree. He couldn't help it. Kitty was such a distraction to him.

He was still looking up at the sky when a snowball hit his arm. He came out of his daze and was hit by another snowball only this time it hit him in the leg. Fritz saw Kitty in front of him with a ball of snow in her hands.

"Are you like, awake?" Kitty asked before she threw the snow at him.

This time Fritz moved out of the way. He scooped up a hand full of snow himself and threw it in her direction missing on purpose. "Now I am."

"Good, cause now you can like, dodge this!" Kitty threw two snowballs in Fritz's direction. One of them missed him but the other hit him dead center.

Fritz tried to move closer to Kitty but he slipped and fell. He tried to get up but fell again so he kicked the skies off. He got up and ran over to Kitty with a big snowball in hand. He threw it at her and hit her in the thigh. He was about to tackle her when she phased. Fritz fell threw her and hit the snow on the other side. face first.

Fritz spun around onto his back but before he could get up Kitty jumped on top of him. She straddled his hips and held his shoulders down with her hands. "Got ya'," Kitty said.

"Not yet," Fritz pushed himself over and took Kitty with him. He now straddled _her _and had her hands pinned above her head.

Fritz looked down at her into her eyes. They stared into each others eyes for what seemed like minutes. Again Fritz became totally oblivious to everything happening around him. He felt sucked into her gaze like a black hole swallowing the enterprise. He couldn't look away from her even if he tried.

Fritz moved his head closer to hers. She didn't resist so he moved even closer. He could smell her hair now. The smell of her strawberry shampoo was just as strong now as it was last time he had smelt it, when they were in the same position in the kitchen. Fritz took a moment to commit the smell to memory.

Fritz parted his lips as he closed the gap between him and Kitty. "Am I interrupting something?" Fritz heard in a deep growl from behind him. He spun off of Kitty and found himself face to face with sabretooth.

"You two are a long way from your friends; no one to hear you scream." Sabretooth said in a low voice.

"What do you want Sabretooth!?" Kitty yelled.

"Xavier." Sabretooth lunged at the two younger mutants.

Fritz jumped aside and Kitty phased through the airborne cat. Sabretooth hit the snow but was up on his feet again in seconds. Fritz took this slip moment to jump onto the feral mutant's back. Fritz wrapped his arms around Sabretooth's neck. Sabretooth however, grabbed Fritz's sweatshirt and lifted him into the air bringing him into view.

"Well well well, what have we here?" Sabretooth tossed the lightweight mutant to the ground. Fritz slid a few feet before stopping.

"Fritz!" Kitty yelled. She started in his direction.

"I wouldn't try it chere." Gambit walked out from behind a tree followed by Colossus. "Give up and we'll make it easy on you and your boyfriend."

"No, you won't hurt him!" Kitty yelled trying to protect her friend as best she could.

"You don't have a choice" Gambit pulled out a card from inside of his trench coat and waved it in the air beforecharging it.


	10. X

**Author's note: **Okay, school is finally over. Now I actually have time to write. That's the reason this chapter took so long. School + Job I hate life. So you guys can expect another chapter shortly. Woot! Here is chapter 10, it's going to be a good one.

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Jean skied down the slope towards Xavier who was waving her over. She slowed to a stop and planted her poles firmly in the soft ground. "What's up professor?"

"Have you seen Kitty or Fritz lately?" Xavier asked.

"No…" Jean replied shortly. "Have you tried calling Kitty's cell phone?"

"She let Rogue borrow it this morning when we got here." Xavier said furrowing his brow.

"Have you tried telepathy?" Jean asked.

"Yes, and I got nothing." Xavier replied.

"Why?" Jean was confused. Why wouldn't Xavier be able to use his _telepathy_ to find two _mutants_?

"I don't know Jean." Xavier said.

"We should look for them!" Jean said as she reached for the straps on her boots to remove the skies.

"No, Jean. You're here to have fun. Leave this up to the Logan, Ororo, and myself. You have to promise me you won't tell the others. I don't want them to worry. They need this time to calm down and relax from all their training." Xavier trusted Jean would keep this to herself.

"Alright professor." Jean said unwillingly.

"Thank you. I'm going to talk to Logan and Ororo. You get back out there and _have_ some fun." Xavier rolled down the path that led back to the lodge leaving two trails in the snow as he went.

Jean looked down the path at Xavier. "Sorry professor. We're a team," she turned and skied over to the group of X-men waiting by the ski lift.

Kitty looked at her surroundings for a way out of this mess. In front of her was Sabretooth. He was standing with his arms crossed and a smug grin on his face. Behind her was the trail she and Fritz came from, now blocked by Gambit holding a deck of cards. To her right were trees, thickly covering her view of the resort. A few feet to her left was an edge that dropped down a few hundred feet to a valley of more trees. _"Great, stay here and deal with these two and end up dead or two of Magnetos experiments. Chance hiding in the trees but probably getting caught, or lose them for good in the trees but falling a hundred feet to do so leading to a horrible mangled death." _Kitty thought.

"Fritz? Now would be a great time to wake up!" She whispered in Fritz's ear.

"…grrrhhg," Fritz grunted.

"Fritz, can you mutate?" Kitty asked quietly keeping her eyes on Sabretooth.

"…huh? …sure. Sleepy panda," Fritz wasn't quit sure what _she_ was talking about, let alone what was going on; there was a loud ringing in his ears.

"Good," Kitty said. She slid her arms under Fritz's and clasped her hands across his chest. Kitty took one last look at Sabretooth before pushing as hard as she could towards the edge.

"Mutate Fritz! Now!" She said as the two rolled over the snowy edge and plummeted to the valley below.

"Now Fritz!" Kitty yelled again.

"…." Fritz was still slightly out of it. He was awake, but wasn't aware of much.

"Fritz!" Kitty yelled in his ear; they were getting closer to the ground below. Kitty was beginning to think this was a horrible idea. The cold wind stung her face like peroxide on an open cut. Kitty slapped Fritz in a desperate attempt to bring him back to reality leaving a red mark on his left cheek.

"Huh…what?" Fritz finally snapped out of it, he frantically glanced around. His skin darkened and his wings stretched to their fullest. Fritz's wings didn't slow them down enough for a nice landing though. They made it halfway to the ground from the tree tops when one of Fritz's wings hit a tree branch and bent backwards. Fritz and Kitty fell through the air once again, they fell about twenty feet before hitting the ground.

Fritz felt as though he hit every branch on the way down. He landed on his only good wing and bounced a little before landing on his stomach. Kitty however did her best to phase through all the branches and tried to land on her feet. She kind of hopped when she landed like a deflated basketball and came to rest on her back. The two lay there for what seemed like hours. Kitty was the first to move. She slowly pushed her self up feeling every bruise on her body as she moved. She stumbled over to Fritz to make sure he was all right.

Gambit and Sabretooth looked out over the ledge at the two mutants lying on the ground not moving. "Well, looks like our work here is finished," Sabretooth said. The two Acolytes turned and walked away feeling no pity.

"Fritz, are you alright? Fritz?" Fritz opened his eyes a little bit to see Kitty kneeling next to him. "Oh my god, like how do you feel?"

Fritz struggled to sit up. He had mutated back to normal right after the fall, something subconscious that he couldn't help. "Like someone pushed me over a cliff and then slapped me in the face," Fritz said nonchalantly.

"I'm so sorry. I panicked and this was the first thing that came to mind." Kitty stared at the ground. She hugged herself and sniffed. "You probably hate me now, don't you."

"No, I don't hate you, _never_." Fritz tried to stand but ended up falling. "If anything, you _saved _out lives. If you hadn't pushed us over the cliff, Sabretooth and Gambit _would _have, _after _they killed us." Fritz tried to stand again, and fell once more.

Kitty sniffed again. "Like, what do we do now?"

"I don't know. But let's get out of the open in case those two come after us," Fritz said.

He finally made it to his feet and helped Kitty up. They limped out of the clearing and made their way through the dense trees.

"So when was the last time the professor saw them?" Evan asked Jean after she told them all of the missing X-Men.

"About two hours ago," Jean replied. "Guys, we need to do something; they could be hurt."

"Then we should split up and search for them," Scott said. "Evan, you and Rogue search all the lifts and lodges down here. Jean and I will search all the lodges and lifts at the top. Kurt, you search anywhere and everywhere else you can think of."

"Okay, let's go." Rogue led the way down the path to the ski lodge.

"You ready?" Jean asked Scott before taking the lead.

"Let's go," Scott followed closely behind Jean as they made their way to the ski lifts.

"How far do you think we are from the resort?" Kitty asked Fritz as he helped her over a snow covered log.

"Not sure. I don't even know which way we're going." Fritz held a branch out of the way for Kitty. Fritz looked over at her as they walked through the forest. Kitty shivered as she hugged herself tighter. Fritz just now noticed she was missing her scarf and jacket. The only thing of warmth that she was wearing now was a thin long-sleeve shirt. Fritz slipped his jacket off and draped it over Kitty's shoulders.

Kitty stopped and looked up at Fritz. "Fritz, I'm fine. You're going to like, freeze without it. You only have a t-shirt on." She tried to take if off but Fritz shot out his hand and grabbed hers.

"And so will you," Fritz nudged her hand away. "Keep it Kitty, it'll make me feel better." Fritz noticed her expression soften. She lowered her hand and slipped it through the sleeve followed by the other.

"Thank you Fritz," Kitty zipped the jacket up to her chin and put her hands in the pockets.

"Always," Fritz said quietly.

Jean made it to a clearing. The snow on the ground was heavily disturbed; at least compared to the rest of the snow. There were two sets of tracks leading away from the clearing as well as two sets leading into the clearing. In front of Jean was a drop off. She made her way over to the edge and knelt down.

"Scott!" Jean yelled over her shoulder.

Scott hurriedly rushed to Jean's voice. He entered the clearing and saw Jean at the edge kneeling down. Jean stood up and faced Scott with a pink scarf in her outstretched hand.

"You don't think…," Scott walked to the edge and peered down. All Scott saw was white snow on the ground below.

"No, and you won't either." Jean grabbed his coaler and headed back the way they came.

Nightfall was coming and Fritz and Kitty had made no progress; they were still just as lost as they were when they started walking. Only now, Fritz was freezing because he didn't have a jacket. Kitty said she was doing fine every time Fritz asked, but he knew she was just as miserable as he was; with or without the jacket.

"We like, so should have waited at the bottom of the cliff for someone to find us." Kitty held the jacket tighter trying to cling to every last bit of warmth possible.

"Come on, it's not that bad…" a strong gust of wind caused Fritz to trail off as he wrapped his arms around his sides for warmth.

"Not that bad! Fritz, we're miles from the resort, it's dark, it's cold, and we don't even know if we're going the right direction!" The cold seemed to be making her really short tempered. Fritz couldn't really blame her for that though, he felt the same way. Kitty slumped against a tree and hugged her waist tightly.

"Alright alright, sorry. It _is _bad." Fritz looked at their surroundings. Snow covered the ground in all directions. Trees as far as he could see. _"We defiantly are lost." _He caught sight of something that was a little out of place.

Hidden by the dark, in all of the white, was a small patch of brown about fifty yards away. "Kitty, do you see that?" Fritz pointed. "Let's go check it out."

The two walked in the dark with the only light being the moon. They finally came to a stop. There, lying in front of them, was a fallen over tree. It's branches extending to the ground creating a canopy underneath where no snow had douched. Fritz looked up at kitty "well, at least it's dry."

Fritz reached down and held up a snow-covered branch. Kitty crouched underneath and crawled inside not feeling like arguing about getting dirty at this point. All she cared about was being warm and out of the snow. Fritz followed on his knees after her. It wasn't much warmer inside than it was outside. The only thing the tree helped to protect them against was the wind. Which in a way made it feel warmer.

The space was about the size of a big couch; big enough to be in and lye down, but not big enough to stand up. It was taller at the end where it had broken making a sloping roof. The dirt under them was dry but the coldness made if feel almost wet.

Fritz leaned back against the stump of the fallen tree and brought his knees up to his chest. He stayed there in silence expecting Kitty to move to the other side. He couldn't help but blame himself for their situation and he thought she blamed him as well. After all, if he had been able to spread his wings sooner, he could have flown them back to the resort and they wouldn't be in this mess, but now his wing was hurt and they weren't going anywhere on it.

Kitty however, sat down next to him and slid half of Fritz coat across his shoulders. She snuggled closer until their shoulders met. Fritz, a little surprised, reached around and placed his hand on her back. He slowly rubbed her back in an attempt to warm her up. He looked down at her as she stared off into space. "I'm s-sso cold," she said quietly.

"Ffffritz, do you mind if…" Kitty didn't give herself time to finish as she guiltily slid her hands under his shirt for further warmth. Fritz didn't seem to mind, barely getting out an audible answer.

Now that Kitty knew she was welcome, she took this opportunity to get comfortable and hugged his waist, placing her head on his chest. Fritz followere her lead and pulled her closer. A single tear made its was down Kitty's cheek, Fritz reached up with is other hand and wiped it from her face.

Every time Kitty tried to move, the cold bit her arms and stung her hands so she held tighter each time until eventually Fritz felt her stop. He looked down at her still body and could only hear the softness of her breathing; she was asleep. He wanted to sleep so much, but he couldn't let Kitty down, not again.

The hours passed bye and Fritz could feel the heaviness of sleep take over. He was too weak and didn't have the power to fight it. He had been walking all day and hadn't had a bite to eat since breakfast. He slowly, unwillingly closed his eyes and passed into the realm of darkness.

**Author's note: **Was it as good as I said? Did I even say it was going to be good? Aw-well. I'd appreciate any reviews. Flames are always welcome.


	11. XI

**Author's note: **No one loves me. :( I haven't received a single review, in like...ever. But hey, that's cool. I'm going to tough it out and continue on; cause i'm just that awesome. Now get on your knees and bow down to my radiating awesomenessnessness! I will rule you all one day. My power will spread like B.O. from my armpits. But until that day comes, read chapter eleven!

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Jean's snowmobile left a deep groove in the snow behind her as she sped through the dense trees. The engine whined and the gears groaned ass he pushed the rented machine to its max. Behind her, Scott steered left and right avoiding the oncoming trees.

The X-Men had spent one day already searching for their lost friends. This time however, they had plenty of light to go by. Logan thought it would be best to rent snowmobiles for everyone so they could cover more ground. She and Scott had been riding for three hours now and hadn't found a single sign of neither Kitty nor Fritz.

Jean scanned the area for the hundredth time. Scott didn't get a chance to ask what she picked up before Jean hooked a sharp left and sped away in that direction. Scott had to fight to keep control of his snowmobile as he quickly turned and followed Jean over a hill.

"KITTY!" Jean yelled. In the distance, Kitty was jumping up and down waving her hand in the air.

Jean's snowmobile slid to a stop. Before she could get off her seat Kitty had her arms around the telepath, "Jean!"

"Kitty, what happened to you?" Jean tried to pull her away with no luck.

"We ran into Sabretooth and—" Kitty started but was cut off by Scott.

"We? You mean Fritz is with you?" Scott couldn't believe they had found both Kitty and Fritz.

"Oh my god! Fritz! Jean, he needs help…" Kitty let go of Jean and ran towards the fallen tree she and Fritz had slept under.

Jean jumped of her seat and ran after Kitty, followed by Scott.

"I couldn't wake him up," Kitty lifted as many branches as she could to reveal a sleeping Fritz.

"How long has he been asleep?" Jean asked as he bent down and checked the kid for a pulse.

"Well, I guess since last night." Kitty bit her lip hoping Jean knew what was wrong with their friend.

"Did he sleep all night without a coat?" Scott seemed worried. After making the necessary precautions, Jean used her powers to lift Fritz off the ground

"Yeah…he gave it to me yesterday." Kitty didn't like where this was going; a small tear ran down the side of her face.

"Scott, Fritz has hypothermia!" Jean quickly removed her jacket and rapped it around Fritz's body. "We have to get him back to the lodge and get him warm before he goes into cardiac arrest!" Jean climbed onto her snowmobile while trying to balance Fritz at the same time.

Scott ran up and grabbed Fritz, "Jean you take Kitty, I'll get Fritz."

"Thanks Scott. Let's go!" Jean waved Kitty over. Kitty jumped on the back of Jean's snowmobile and they took off speeding towards the lodge. _"Professor, we found them both. But Fritz needs help bad, he has hypothermia. We need to get him warm. We'll all meet you back at the lodge. Tell the others." _Jean said telepathically.

_"Thank you Jean, I will." _The professor echoed back in her head.

Scott held onto Fritz with his left hand as he steered with his right, he followed closely behind Jean and Kitty.

Jean could feel Kitty's fear for Fritz. "He'll be okay Kitty, don't worry," Jean said.

"It's all my fault Jean!" Kitty broke into tears and hugged Jean harder.

- - - - - - - - - -

An hour later, Fritz was stable and on the X-Jet on the way back to the mansion. Kitty explained what happened the previous day and night, starting from when she and Fritz went cross-country skiing. Kitty was still wearing Fritz's coat when she finished her story.

"Well, no sense staying inside on a beautiful day like this. Every one outside and enjoy yourselves. Leave the rest of this up to Logan, Ororo, and myself." Xavier waited for the kids to file out side. Kitty however, stayed behind.

"It's my fault we got lost, don't be mad at Fritz." Kitty seemed to find the floor very interesting.

"No one ever said you were in trouble my dear." Ororo stepped forward and embraced Kitty. "You two are safe now and that's all that matters."

Kitty thanked the three of them and ran outside to join the others.

"What I want to know, is why you couldn't find them last night professor? And why Jean did so easily today" Logan asked at last.

"I'm concerned myself old friend…it was like they didn't even exist." Xavier looked out the window at the falling snow.

- - - - - - - - - -

Fritz was taken back to the institute, via the X-jet and beasts help. Beast managed to warm Fritz up to a safe temperature; but, he and the professor thought it would be best to take him back to the mansion so Beast could monitor him for twenty-four hours.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Fritz woke up to the beeping of a heart monitor, "what the?" Fritz sat up and took in his surroundings; white walls, sterile tables, electronics and machines for monitory body functions. _"What am I doing in the Infirmary?"_

Fritz slid off of the table and landed on weak legs. He would have fallen over had he not grabbed for the side of the pathetic excuse for a bed. "Whoa, head rush." He wandered out into the corridor supporting himself on the walls as he walked. He was completely drained of energy and he didn't know why. He turned a corner and ran head first into a big blue wall.

"Aaaah!" Beast yelled spilling his coffee over the both of them. Luckily Fritz was only wearing clothes that weren't his. They were the normal white hospital sleep clothes, only these had a red "X" over the left breast. Beast however, wasn't as fortunate. He was wearing a blue shirt with a black and yellow tie. Beast's shirt now sported a rather large brown spot on his stomach.

"Uh, I'm really sorry Mr. McCoy." Fritz was expecting a talking about being more careful, because it was obviously his fault.

"Shoot, Ororo's going to kill me. This is the third time this week." Beast knew Fritz had been having a bad day so far. So he did his best to help him out. That shirt was actually a present from an old friend in college.

"So…you're not mad about the huge stain?" Fritz suddenly gained a lot more respect for Hank McCoy.

"No sweat, it's an old shirt anyways. You can hardly notice it. Did you sleep well?" Beast tried his best to straighten his now damp shirt. He bent down and picked up the broken coffee mug.

"Yeah, _why_ was I in the infirmary?" the two started walking back to the medical wing; Fritz still using the wall for support every other step.

"I didn't _think _you would remember," Beast said. He grabbed a plain white shirt off of a hook on the wall near his desk in the medical wing. He changed the clean dry one for the old wet on and slipped on a whit lab coat as well. "Fritz, you had hypothermia. You're still recovering, I see you're doing well. You do need more sleep though."

"How did I…" but as Fritz was about to ask, memories flooded back to him in a rush. "I gave Kitty my Jacket cause she was cold." Fritz almost whispered this.

"That would explain it Fritz. No Jacket in freezing weather will do that to a person." Beast said with a slight chuckle.

"Kitty! How's Kitty?" Fritz asked in a rush.

"From what I hear, she was well enough to stay the rest of the trip." Beast shuffled some papers on his desk to make it look as if he was busy.

"That's good…"Fritz said quietly.

"Your jacket probably saved her life Fritz." Beast said.

"Yeah," Fritz seamed distracted.

The two sat in elative silence. The only noise was coming form Beast's random shuffling and stacking of papers.

"Hey Mr. McCoy? When you've got time, can you look at my wing? I hurt it when I fell off the cliff." Fritz finally spoke up, after noticing a defined pattern in Beast's monotonous shuffling.

"You fell off of a cliff?" Beast stood up from his desk and walked to Fritz's side.

"Not so much fell as was pushed." Fritz saw the shocked looked on Beast's face and added, "it's a long story. I'll tell you later." Fritz mutated and tried to extend his injured wing, but winced and sharply pulled it back.

"Don't your injuries heal on there own once you mutate?" Beast asked while pulling Fritz's wind out a bit to examine.

"They did, haven't for a while though." Fritz said between gasps as Beast poked and prodded his hurt wing.

"Interesting, well, your wing is fractured." Beast said and released Fritz's wing gently. "I'm going to have to make you a cast if you want it to heal right."

"Fine with me," Fritz said. "I can still use it right?"

"Not until it heals, unless you want to cause more damage." Beast got out the necessary materials to make a cast.

Not flying would be hard for Fritz. It was one of his only Joys of being able to mutate.

"Wait, what will happen when I mutate? What will happen to the cast?" Fritz asked.

"Humph, good question." Beast thought for a moment. "I could put a few screws in it. If I'm right, when you mutate, your body will think the cast is a part of you. It _may _work."

"Gaah…okay. I feel like a guinea pig." Fritz wasn't sure about it but he didn't have any better ideas.

The pins were set and the cast was laid and now Fritz could move his wing with much less pain. "That should do well," Beast said. He wandered back of to his seat.

"I can't mutate back," Fritz said blatantly.

"Why not?" Beast looked up from his papers a little surprised.

"I was hoping you could tell me," Fritz said. Fritz wasn't that worried because this had happened many times. "This isn't the first time I haven't been able to."

"Really?" Beast turned around and pulled out some files from a cabinet behind him. "Tell me every time this has happened."

Fritz told him about the time after the danger room session, the time it mad him late for school in them morning, and when they finished cleaning up the brotherhoods mess.

"Interesting, very interesting." Beast checked the charts again. "I think all I'll need are some x-rays…"

Fritz was glad that was all. _No_ needles involved; he hated needles. He would gladly except any form of medicine as long as it didn't involve needles, _any_ form.

"…and a blood sample." Beast finally said.

All of Fritz's hopes crashed. "I hope with all of the technology this institute has, you've developed another way of drawing blood besides needles." Fritz cringed at the thought of the answer.

"Nope, just old fashioned needles." Beast held up a syringe.

The light gleamed off the point taunting Fritz. He knew this wasn't going to be easy.

"I'll examine these, _you_ need some more rest." Beast said sternly.

"Thanks Mr. McCoy," Fritz climbed onto the hard bed and finally realizing how tired he truly was, laid his head down and fell asleep.

- - - - - - - - - -

Xavier had called a meeting in his office when everyone got back to the mansion at 9:30pm. "As far as Fritz's well being, he is doing fine and will be able to leave the infirmary soon. I believe Logan has something to say to you."

"You kids have done really good these past few weeks. I know it's hard to put up with unexpected training, but it has to be done, right?" Logan was referring to all the times he had called the mutants out of bed at three in the morning to run a DR session. This is concerning who I've picked to be leader of the X-men should I not be there." At this, everyone perked up. "Scott, you are a fine leader, you have shown us your ability in combat and your tactics." Scott had a big grin on his face. "However, Jean, you demonstrated today that you can keep it cool when under the most stressful circumstances. You detected your fallen teammates, you determined the problem, and you set up proper evac. to ensure their safety. On that note, I have decided to put you in charge."

Scott sighed but knew it was the right decision and joined everyone else in congratulating her. "Thank you Logan. I'll do my best." Jean said with a sense of authority.

"Now, there is cake and pizza in the kitchen for all of you." Xavier said seeing everyone jump to their feet.

"Can I ask to keep the adults a little longer?" Beast asked after the last kid left.

- - - - - - - - - -

When Fritz finally woke up, the infirmary was dark and Beast was gone. The only light in the room was coming from Beast's computer. Fritz checked his watch, 10:17pm. _"The rest of the_ _X-men should be back by now,"_ Fritz thought. He jumped off of his bed and made his way out of the infirmary passing by Beast's computer. Fritz glanced at the screen for a moment but didn't pay much attention to it.

Diagrams and formulas flashed across the screen. In the top left corner, the screen read, "Advancing Genetic Mutation: unstable?"

Fritz walked down the dark hallway of the subbasement feeling a little better than before. He took the elevator up to the ground floor and met Rogue walking down the hall.

"Fritz!" Rogue ran up to him and wrapped him in a hug. "How are you feeling? Beast and the Professor are worried."

"Worried? I just talked to Beast a little while ago and he seemed like everything was fine." Fritz was confused. Then again, the adults didn't seem to like to tell the students a lot of things.

"Oh, well maybe I heard wrong. They're in the Professor's office if you want to talk to them." She put her hand on his shoulder, "I'm glad you're okay Fritz. You had us all worried."

"Thanks, didn't mean to." Fritz gave her a slight grin and walked on down the hall towards the professor's office.

Fritz passed by the kitchen and decided he should have a snack first. He walked in and was greeted by the rest of the X-men finishing up there dinner apparently. There was a third of a cake sitting on the counter and almost a full pizza along with many empty pizza boxes spread around the kitchen.

Kitty ran from the table and literally jumped onto Fritz wrapping her arms around him, she almost tripped on him doing it. "Fritz, your okay! I was like, so worried. How do you feel. You like, _look_ good." Kitty was talking to fast for Fritz to understand all of it.

"Kitty, slow down. I'm fine. I'm just tired." Fritz hugged her back not wanting to make a big deal about it. He hated attention. He didn't like everyone focusing on him. Which was hard when you fall off a cliff and then get hypothermia. "Beast said I'll live."

"Good, we don't want you dying. You still owe me two bucks," Scott said from the table with a laugh.

"Maybe I'd rather die," Fritz smiled back. He said his goodbyes, received a kiss on the cheek from Kitty, grabbed a slice of pizza and sauntered out of the Kitchen to find Beast.

He approached the door to the office and gave a small knock. _"Come in Fritz,"_ the professor said telepathically.

Fritz opened the door and walked in noticing the sudden seriousness in the air. "Hello, professor, Logan, Ororo, Mr. McCoy," Fritz said addressing each adult individually. "What's going on?"

"Fritz, why don't you sit down?" Xavier pointed to a chair in the middle of all of the older mutants.

Fritz did so and suddenly became very worried and confused. "Did something happen to my parents?" It just dawned on Fritz that he hadn't heard from his Dad, or Mom, for a long time.

"No no, they're both fine." Xavier looked over at Beast who was standing to the side of Fritz. "We've been discussing your mutation, Fritz."

"What's wrong with my mutation?" Fritz remembered that Beast had taken x-rays and a blood sample. Was this serious?

"Your mutation is advancing, Fritz." Xavier paused for a moment. "This happens to every mutant. It's just another step in evolution."

"So this is a good thing?" Fritz asked.

"Unfortunately, your mutation is advancing in a different way. Fritz, every time you mutate, your mutant form gets a chance to further mutate. Are you following me?" Xavier asked.

"This body," Fritz gestured to himself, "is staying the same, while my mutated body mutates?"

"Something like that kid," Logan said from the window seat.

"Yes, exactly. Hank has told us that you've had problems mutating back from your mutant form. That's because your body is adapting to your mutant form. It's going to get harder and harder to mutate back until one day….you can't." Xavier was sad to tell Fritz this but someone had to before it was too late.

"Wait, so someday I'll be stuck in my mutant form forever?" Fritz's heart sank.

"Yes, I'm sorry. But, Hank thinks he can find a way to stop it." Xavier said.

"I may be able to make a formula that will suppress your mutant powers from advancing. Same way I stopped my mutation from coming out for so long. I just need time to work on it." Beast spoke up.

"So what, I'm just supposed to not mutate until then?" Fritz asked angrily. He knew it wasn't any of their faults, but he couldn't help but hate them right now.

"More or less. Just do it sparingly and everything should be _fine_." Xavier said.

"Great, I'm a mutant who can't use his powers. I'm going to be a big help to the team!" Fritz swore and stormed out of the room.

"Fritz." Ororo called after him.

"Let him go, he needs to think," Xavier said. "Hank, get started on that formula as soon as you can. Logan, see that Fritz refrains from mutating if it isn't necessary. Ororo, our young lad needs more moral support now than every, see what you can do; tell the others." Xavier rolled over to the window and stared out at the falling rain, "I feel the worst is going to happen my friends."

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**Author's note:** Yay, finished. Finally after hours of writing and editing stuff, I have delivered the perfect transition to the climax of the story. SWEET! Sorry if this chapter seemed a bit rushed because it was. I wrote most of it on my vacation and wanted to get it over with so I can start the finally. Next chapter, Fritz angst, Lance bashing. Please leave a review.


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